Software Updates - How many of us use the new features?

All Software Vendors charge customers an annual maintenance fees for support ( read defects in the software) and updates with new features. The cost of these fees is pretty high anything from 15 % of the list price to as as high as 30 % of the list price. I find that most applications do not use the new features. For existing applications in production, using the new features means a regression test, for new applications it means undergoing a training and trying out the new features. Do production applications have the budget and time for this or even for new applications do people have time and budget for learning experimenting and implementing. Are we using what we are paying for?

How Much Do We Need to Repeat Code

With the new paradigms in Software , I find that the same validations need to be repeated over many of the tiers of the application software. The same validation is repeated in Javascript , Middle Tier and the database layer. This means more maintenance, keeping the n parts in sync and more hardware horsepower to maintain and run the application. Sigh!

Why are software installations so difficult

After paying a large price for software, one feels that it is all done with and one can start using it. But unfortunately it is easier said than done, if a person has not installed it earlier he either has to pay a charge for the installation to the vendor or go through an installation manual of over 500 pages and attempt to install it. After following the instructions in the manual, snags arise. To solve the snag, the product support site needs to be accessed and what is found that a patch needs to be downloaded to proceed ahead! The least a vendor should do is to provide self installing software without the administrator going through pages and pages of manuals and downloading fixes and rather unfortunately when the next version comes out the installation procedure changes. Sigh!