Vishwajeet Singh, National Manager, IT, FCm Travel Solutions (I) Pvt Ltd, calls the current scenario as perfect to look beyond legacy systems. “It’s the right time for anyone to switch, if they have a need. Vendors are trying their best to grab opportunities and they can extend huge benefits to the corporate to get associated.”

More so as the tide would bring forth more, as it turns. As Singh sees it, the situations are not going to be as bad as today, it will change and then the market will not give room for larger negotiations.

“Also the approach at this stage is focused and bounded by strict SLA’s, the same will also get changed,” he adds.
Sitting some miles away is another CIO, who agrees on the ‘go-beyond-legacy’ track.

Muthukrishnan G, chief manager - IT, Madras Cements calls it a right time too. In fact, he advises that the time gap to upgrade should at most be around two to three years in the current tech dynamics. “CIOs cannot afford to be left behind in the technology progress and we need to be updated.”

Talking about his move from a legacy set-up to an E-suite he points out that latest technology upgrade, cost effectiveness and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) benefits were the main results he sees now. One and a half years later, he is satisfied with the user-friendliness output he has derived with the decision.
So should CIOs do it to stay abreast and make the most of the changing times? Is there more than just obsolescence that drives a legacy system out of the door?

Well, the reasons could be many.
They have been in use for a considerable period of time and the kind of programs they run are too outmoded for tweaking now, says Ajit Sathe, head, Sales, APAC, Quinnox. Knowledge management, to add, is another issue. But then, more important, is the change that businesses, both as enterprises and as vendors, have undergone since the start of a legacy system. “Manufacturing for instance, was not driven as much by market environments, in yesteryears, as it is now. So it has to move with the times and have appropriate applications. Also what if the vendor side moves on too in terms of change in priorities, tech upgrades etc.?” Sathe explains.
Not very long back a report showed how outdated computer systems were contributing to the taxman’s troubles. A huge backlog of people who may not be paying the right amount of tax spun out of inadequacies of a legacy system in UK.

It was as much as 16.2 million Pay As You Earn (PAYE) cases (by March 08) that were waiting to be checked manually and according to a report by the Public Accounts Committee, the backlog had been lengthened by delays in transferring cases from the 1980s PAYE computer system.

This report at silicon.com put the spotlight on the legacy PAYE that posed these issues for the department.  As per the report, the backlog was attributed to the delayed transfer of processing and also highlighted a long history of technical problems with the tax-credit computer systems.

In another report, as latest as July 2009 on the same site, we can see that failings in computer systems used by the Ministry of Defence led to the loss of almost £300m in payments and equipment, as found by the National Audit Office (NAO) wherein other examples like Department of Health's flawed £12.7bn National Programme for IT and the Cabinet Office's £24.4m write-off on the Scope project were also cited.

An interesting mention in that report goes like this – “The JPA system is ‘extremely complex and subject to continuous change’, with some 400 extensions having been made to the original software. The convoluted system is prone to mistakes being made during data entry. The department has a range of detective controls in place but these will not prevent error occurring or detect all errors that have been made.”
Attributing many issues to a mix of ‘new and legacy’ kit was one area of focus here.

These reports could be just a tip of the iceberg of mounting problems that ineffective IT incumbent environments leave CIOs grappling with. The ‘beyond-Legacy’ genre is visible all around.

However, in a CIOL interview some time back, Titus Eapen, chief manager (Information System In Charge), Kochi Refinery, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd gives a glimpse of the pro-legacy side too.

Talking about the relevance of legacy systems in today’s times, he stressed that, “On the contrary, some of our legacy systems are even better than today's solutions.”
Pointing at how completely generalized some MNC suites are, he added, “Their SIM module is weak in the sense that it doesn't satisfy on generating all reports required or all reconciliation needs. There are a lot of intricacies on taxation, duties as per movement of goods which it cannot handle. For such needs, we have our traditional workflows and legacy tools that are working well and have even been integrated with ERP.”

So, is the ‘switch-off-legacy’ an upshot of some vendor spiel, a necessity born out of changing times or something else? Even so, what drives the real migration and what issues do CIOs face there? All that and more, as our special on Legacy system continues.