I had a brother working for GE, and they had the same issue: GE's in-house software worked on XP, period. That was GE's decision. Same as their decision not to install end-user anti-virus/anti-malware software, leading to entire offices getting infected and losing days of productivity, because GE didn't have in-house IT support and required infected pcs to be shipped to an out-of-state third-party contractor to clean up and return. In the meantime, workers played cards or twiddled their thumbs.Flatpointhigh wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 10:10 pm The programs that my social worker uses is XP only. they can't upgrade, and these are commercial programs.
That's the private sector showing us how it's done, you betcha.
Zeke wrote:
And I work in an environment where we pay huge sums to a commercial developer for their software, which they, along with nearly everyone else, have designed to be browser-based, because that puts the load on the user's computer, not the third-party's network. Except that they can't keep up with the pace of browser updates, and they can't make it compatible for every browser in use out there. Internally, we can require staff to use the recommended browser, but our outside users (general public) use whatever OS and browser they're accustomed to using. And then we get trouble tickets and angry complaints.Cheaper? Not even close to the cost the commercially available stuff. They were charging us $100 an hour to reinvent the wheel. They'd write a program that would run on XP, for example, but the programs were never Microsoft Windows compliant. Many programs used the browser as the interface. When Microsoft upgraded Internet Explorer the programs wouldn't run. We were stuck with an obsolete operating system and web browser.
That's our main system. We deliver a variety of content on a huge number of platforms to our users, and every single platform has its issues, again complicated by the fact that the ways and means of accessing and using content found online are endless. There simply can't be a one-size-fits-all solution.
My coworkers and I (who handle the endless influx of trouble tickets) call that Job Security.
Incidentally, the state of MN DMV rolled out a new system this past summer. As expected, they ran into a lot of issues for the first several weeks of the rollout. Actually, the problems have continued, but the bulk of them now are concentrated in end-user offices where they have a slow internet connection and/or using old, slow hardware or/or using the wrong web browser. Turns out about a third of the local offices that handle DMV stuff are privately owned, so it's on them if they don't update their hardware/use the wrong browser. And if they're located in the boondocks and have a lousy internet connection, they're hosed whether it's a state, municipal, or private office.
