Software upgrades eat nearly a third of companies’ IT budgets, survey finds

By Anastasiia Kozlova Oct 20 (Reuters) Large US and British companies spend 28% of their software budgets on average to pay for vendor-driven ​upgrades, migration and licensing changes they would ‌not have actively chosen, adding avoidable costs and operational risks in the race to adopt AI solutions, a survey by software maintenance provider Origina showed on Tuesday. These hard-to-avoid recurring ‌costs ​and operational disruption were described ⁠as a software tax in ⁠the study that surveyed more than 2,000 companies.  When the alternative to an unwanted upgrade is losing support on systems the business runs on, ​saying yes is often a rational response,  Origina CEO Tomas O Leary said. • 95% of respondents said ⁠they had paid for a ⁠vendor-driven upgrade they expected to worsen ​outcomes, while 80% said leaving a major software ​vendor would significantly disrupt their business • 84% said ‌senior engineering staff always or often devoted time to vendor-mandated software chang