[tuddman]

As with most technological advances and innovations, people - even laggards of technological adoption - tend to over-estimate in the near term and under-estimate in the long term in terms of predicting the 'impact' of a given technology. So based on nothing at all other than witnessing corporations and industries rise and fall for more than 2 decades now because of new technologies, let's say 7 years before you're out. Fair?

[sllewe]

As I look around at a pile of RFPs with companies running some core functionality on Windows Server 2003, RHEL 5, MYSQL 4 etc....I'll take that bet.

[tuddman]

I suspect these companies view upgrading core functionality tech as a cost center to be avoided at all costs and for as long as humanly possible. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", I hear them bark from their bean-counting management perch. So too were the companies that were content with their horse drawn delivery trucks to move their goods around town.

We now have a better, faster, cheaper (by orders of magnitude) way to move not goods but value through a network.

Obviously neither of us know how long it'll take for the legacy systems to completely die off, but they will. So I'll simplify the bet to: when, not if. Still game?