Product Obsolescence

What Does Product Obsolescence Mean?

Product obsolescence refers to the time and state in which a piece of technology or product ceases to be useful, productive or compatible.

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Product obsolescence may occur when a company stops producing, marketing or supporting a sold or developed product.

Techopedia Explains Product Obsolescence

Product obsolescence is an estimation of the end of a product’s operational lifecycle. Generally, product obsolescence is measured before or during the product development phase and is estimated using past and future technological and industry growth statistics.

In computing, hardware and software become obsolete once they are superseded by newer, better versions. For hardware components, computing power, internal architecture, memory speed and other related parameters become factors used to evaluate product obsolescence criteria, whereas for a software product, enhanced functionality, security, platform compatibility and operating system (OS) support are used to evaluate the operational lifecycle.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…