50% Of People Don’t Upgrade Software

Sites include Skype.com . Published on August 11th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

It’s International Technology Upgrade (ITU) week but that fact is lost on almost half of consumers, which it turns out, are notorious for not upgrading software.

The ITU initiative is a joint effort between Skype, Symantec and TomTom who have found that half of consumers either don’t care about software upgrading or just simply forget. According to a press release from Skype, “The prime focus of International Technology Upgrade Week is to directly address consumers’ concerns and educate them on the value of keeping their software up to date, especially when many updates are free.”

Men seem to have a better handle on upgrading their software and even though women are becoming the bigger buyers of technology, they invariably rely on men to do the upgrades for them according to data released by Skype.

The trouble sometimes is with the volume of software that has to be upgraded sometimes. The typical computer user for instance will have no fewer than bits of software installed on their PC; upgrading all those manually is a chore and not something most look forward to. There’s also the problem of intrusive updates which many consumers hate.

Finding the right balance is the real rub and ITU perhaps is a good start. Skype and co will need to be more vocal and active about the issue (if it even is an issue); perhaps in another few years of ITU running the message will have got through.