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by Eric Marks, Contributing Editor   I hear a lot of organizations talk about the challenges they have with their legacy information systems. Most organizations spend 70%-80% of their information technology (IT) budgets on maintaining these legacy systems, even though they prefer that these systems would simply go away. This is a common IT complaint. So what exactly is a "legacy," and why is it seen in such a negative context? The word itself is defined as either 1) Money or property bequeathed to another by will, or 2) Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past, as in a legacy of religious freedom. Under this definition, the term has a more positive connotation than it does when it is used to describe dated IT systems. In business technology circles, legacy usually means old, outdated, and expensive to maintain. It often implies that a company is being held back by antiquated, inflexible systems. Of course, with 80% of your IT budget committed to maintaining these systems, you would hope that they would contribute to 80% of your business's revenue. However, in most cases, legacy systems fall far short of that mark. [Click to continue] |