Enterprises waste 28% of software budgets on unwanted upgrades
Original: Enterprises keep buying software upgrades that IT thinks will make things worse
Why This Matters
Vendor lock-in is quietly draining enterprise IT budgets and engineering capacity at scale.
A survey of 2,018 senior IT leaders at firms with 10,000+ employees and $1B+ revenue found 95% paid for vendor-driven upgrades they believed would reduce performance, reliability, or business value.
Enterprise companies are spending roughly 28 cents of every software dollar on upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes they didn't ask for — and often didn't want. That's the central finding from 'The Software Tax,' a report commissioned by enterprise software maintenance provider Origina and conducted by third-party research firm Censuswide. The survey covered 2,018 CIOs and senior IT decision-makers at companies with at least 10,000 employees and $1 billion in annual revenue, split between the US and UK.
The numbers are striking. Ninety-five percent of respondents said their organization paid for a vendor-driven change in the past three years that they believed would hurt performance or business value. More than half did so repeatedly. The reason is straightforward: 76% say they have little real leverage in negotiations, and 80% say leaving major vendors would cause significant disruption.
Origina CEO Tomás O'Leary put it plainly: 'When the alternative to an unwanted upgrade is losing support on systems the business runs on, saying yes is often a rational response.'
The fallout isn't just financial. Forced upgrade cycles crowd out spending on innovation (cited by 36%), HR (32%), security (31%), and customer-facing work (31%). Liberty Mutual CIO James McGlennon noted that a single upgrade cycle can consume top engineers for nearly a year — and it repeats annually. Ninety-one percent of respondents said they would support laws giving enterprises tenant-like protections against vendor pressure. Note: Origina sells independent software maintenance, giving it a clear interest in highlighting vendor lock-in.