--- title: Enterprises keep buying software upgrades that IT thinks... description: Big enterprises spend 28 percent of their software budgets on upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes they often think are detrimental. A survey of 2,018... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/enterprises-keep-buying-software-upgrades-that-it-thinks-will-make-things-worse-vzces8y21 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Enterprises keep buying software upgrades that IT thinks will make things worse | daily.dev og:description: Big enterprises spend 28 percent of their software budgets on upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes they often think are detrimental. A survey of 2,018... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/enterprises-keep-buying-software-upgrades-that-it-thinks-will-make-things-worse-vzces8y21 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/vzCES8Y21.png og:image:alt: Enterprises keep buying software upgrades that IT thinks will make things worse og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Enterprises keep buying software upgrades that IT thinks will make things worse **[Ars Technica](https://daily.dev/sources/arstechnica)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Big enterprises spend 28 percent of their software budgets on upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes they often think are detrimental. A survey of 2,018 CIOs and senior IT decision-makers at firms with at least 10,000 employees and $1 billion in revenue found 95 percent had paid for a vendor-driven change in the past three years that they believed would reduce performance, reliability, or business value. 53 percent said it happened more than once. 76 percent said their organization has very little real leverage in negotiations, and 80 percent said moving away from major vendors would cause significant disruption. The survey was commissioned by Origina, which provides maintenance for various enterprise software, for its report 'The Software Tax.' ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What percentage of their software budget do large enterprises spend on unwanted upgrades? Enterprises spend an average of 28 percent of their software budgets on unwanted upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes. This comes from a survey of 2,018 CIOs and senior IT decision-makers at companies with at least 10,000 employees and $1 billion in annual revenue, commissioned by Origina and conducted by Censuswide. _Teams budgeting for next year's software spend can compare notes on vendor costs via daily.dev._ ### Do IT leaders actually believe vendor-driven software upgrades help their organizations? No, 95 percent of surveyed IT decision-makers said their organization paid for a vendor-driven upgrade, migration, or licensing change in the past three years that they believed at the time would reduce performance, reliability, or business value. 53 percent said this happened more than once, according to a survey of 2,018 CIOs at large enterprises. _Anyone pushing back on a forced vendor upgrade can find similar experiences discussed on daily.dev._ ### Why do enterprises keep accepting vendor upgrades they disagree with? Because they lack negotiating leverage: 76 percent of surveyed IT leaders say their organization has very little real leverage in vendor negotiations, and 80 percent say moving away from major vendors would cause significant disruption. Origina CEO Tomás O'Leary notes that refusing often means losing support on systems the business depends on. _IT leaders weighing vendor lock-in risks can track similar vendor-negotiation stories on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [SPONSORED: Whose roadmap is your software estate running on?](https://daily.dev/posts/sponsored-whose-roadmap-is-your-software-estate-running-on--5b5xbmcsa) · The Register · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [CloudBees CEO: Why Migration Is a Mirage Costing You Millions](https://daily.dev/posts/cloudbees-ceo-why-migration-is-a-mirage-costing-you-millions-qljdtkl3p) · The New Stack · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Most VMware users still “actively reducing their VMware footprint,” survey finds](https://daily.dev/posts/most-vmware-users-still-actively-reducing-their-vmware-footprint-survey-finds-9thhxgstu) · Ars Technica · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#licensing](https://daily.dev/tags/licensing) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/enterprises-keep-buying-software-upgrades-that-it-thinks-will-make-things-worse-vzces8y21) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Enterprises keep buying software upgrades that IT thinks will make things worse","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/enterprises-keep-buying-software-upgrades-that-it-thinks-will-make-things-worse-vzces8y21","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/enterprises-keep-buying-software-upgrades-that-it-thinks-will-make-things-worse-vzces8y21"},"datePublished":"2026-10-21T23:10:28.612Z","dateModified":"2026-10-22T00:02:44.314Z","description":"Big enterprises spend 28 percent of their software budgets on upgrades, migrations, and licensing changes they often think are detrimental. 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