New software gathers dust in IT departments

Companies are leaving software to gather dust on the shelf for six months before they even take a look at it — and then waiting another six months to actually deploy it.

Such businesses are taking a "frivolous approach" to new software by not implementing it for a year after they buy it, according to a survey of 135 IT managers.

More than two thirds — 69 per cent — of those surveyed said they left new software untouched for six months or more and 85 per cent said they took a further six months to deploy these new applications.

But nearly a third of companies said they had to manually install new software applications, rising to 41 per cent of companies of up to 3,000 employees, according to the survey sponsored by Enteo Software.

Software updates are an "exceptionally time consuming and mundane task", said Stephan Glathe, Enteo's managing director, which means they get pushed to the bottom of the to-do list.

"Waiting more than a year to roll out software is like paying now and buying later. IT is meant to underpin and drive business performance but the research would indicate that this isn't happening," he said in a statement.

Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of IT managers surveyed said they spent over half of their time on supporting end users and one in five admitted to spending three quarters of their time on this.