Dell-Backed Survey Finds 70% of Agencies Remain Dependent on Legacy IT Systems; Steve Harris Comments

A study sponsored by Dell and conducted by PSB has shown that 70 percent of 100 federal information technology and business decision makers surveyed said their agencies run IT applications on outdated computer systems.

The State of IT Trends 2016 study also found that more than 50 percent of respondents admitted to the fact that their agency operates expired computer operating systems, Dell said Tuesday.

PSB carried out the survey in May 2016 online.

“The alarming percentage of critical applications running on legacy IT systems, as revealed by our survey, aligns with many of the concerns currently being voiced by government leaders and agency customers alike,” said Steve Harris, vice president and general manager of Dell’s federal business.

Federal IT leaders who responded to the survey cited cybersecurity as their top concern over legacy IT in addition to the cost of system support, according to Dell.

Sixty-one percent of respondents said their agencies still use operating systems already unplugged by their vendors such as Windows 7 or Windows 8 and 34 percent said their organizations still run Windows Server 2008.