One of the main reasons cited is no time and resources to upgrade. And that is probably strongly related to the current recession.<p>It seems "only human" for people to cut back and save when the economy is bad, but unfortunately that is also the wrong thing to do in order for the economy to recover, and the wrong way to reboot a business. Now is <i>exactly</i> the time for companies to be investing in their futures, and I.T. is one of those major spending areas. With smart spending today, they could be extremely well positioned in a year or two.<p>A related problem is that I've yet to witness an I.T. group that operates incrementally, or in a parallel testing fashion; it seems that everything has to become a snowball in order to happen at all.<p>There <i>are</i> ways to make upgrades perfectly safe, and achievable over a longer period of time when resources are scarce. For example, machines could be upgraded a few at a time in isolation (ideally with a production-like parallel test environment), starting with the more experienced users. And, the culture could evolve to commit to incremental improvements in business applications on a <i>regular</i> basis, so that change is <i>expected</i> instead of being some rare event that scares everyone and threatens to tear the company apart at the seams.