A friend of mine who is a high level software development manger still finds companies who say they want to progress their applications into the new generation of softare, so as to gain the obvious economies of lower cost and greater reliability. They start off saying that they want to do the migration in 18 months and maintain the old system till complete. He worked for one company who, after three years still could not let go of the old COBOL system, so he left.
Countless mangers of even small, easily understood, companies - do not know the importance of migrating to new platforms and making things simpler. For international corporates - it is the greatest challenge that they cannot grasp. As I said, I do feel sorry for them because, as Hartington so ably illustrates, the complexity and inter-working is fearsome.