Clothing made of organic cotton, vegetables grown locally, packaging made of paper – in their private lives, many people consciously shop for sustainable products. But used software is also sustainable: In this year’s market survey, the used software supplier usedSoft asked more than 150 participating purchasers from companies, public authorities and the software trade: How important is climate protection to them when purchasing in their company? The remarkable result: For about 83%, sustainability plays a rather important to important role in procurement as well as IT purchasing.
Used software extends the life cycle of hardware
Newly developed software often requires the purchase of more powerful hardware. A current example of this is Windows 11. Microsoft’s new operating system often cannot be installed on existing devices due to very high system requirements. “When new software versions cause the need to replace perfectly functioning devices with otherwise sufficient performance, it is a real economic problem for companies. And a damaging problem for the environment,” says Michael Aufderheide, COO and CFO at usedSoft. This opinion is shared by almost all respondents: 94% stated that it is “worrying” when new software versions make it necessary to purchase new hardware.
It is therefore only logical that 91% of the participants are willing to do without the latest software version, such as Windows 11, if this extends the lifetime of their hardware. “Reaching for a well-engineered previous version is a sustainable alternative to buying a new one,” says Aufderheide. “However, Microsoft itself usually only offers the latest software releases. The way out of this is the second-hand market, where older versions are still available.” 61% said they use the second-hand market to purchase previous versions in order to extend the life cycle of products.
Overengineering – more is not necessarily better
Green IT is often associated only with energy-efficient computers or the refurbished hardware market. But software also has an ecological footprint. Especially in software development, CO2 emissions are increasingly becoming a critical indicator. With intensive effort, new versions with more features are coming onto the market ever faster. In the survey, however, 75% were of the opinion that many new software versions were “overengineered”. This means that they merely introduced functions that they did not need in practice.
3. April 2025
Refurbished hardware is all the rage
Why buy new when it can be cheaper and more sustainable? Many of you are apparently asking yourselves precisely this question - not only for used software, but also for hardware that has been professionally refurbished. Our recent survey clearly shows this: - More than 75 per cent have already purchased refurbished hardware. - And [...]
20. March 2025
Virtualisation in comparison
For companies that rely on high-performance virtualisation, vSphere Enterprise Plus is the first choice. But of course there are other solutions on the market. For example, Windows Server already includes a virtualisation solution with Hyper-V. But what are the differences to VMware vSphere - and for whom is it worth using it? Our comparative overview [...]
22. October 2024
Install Office with the Office Deployment Tool
Since version 2019, Microsoft Office can be installed with the Office Deployment Tool. With our instructions, this is much easier than it looks at first glance. On this page, we will show you step by step how to install Office 2024, 2021 or 2019. All relevant links and commands can be found in the instructions. [...]