How might an organization with a good strategic idea within the area of Information Technologies be limited in its ability to implement that idea if...

As anyone
with a computer knows, the technology inside that computer became obsolete the second it was
purchased.  Information technologies become dated extremely quickly, and transformations or
revolutions in the development of information technologies exceeds anything we have witnessed
before.  The internal combustion engine was invented hundreds of years ago and, while it has
certainly evolved greatly over time, it is still the basic mechanical structure that propels the
automobiles billions of people rely on every day.  In comparison, the evolution of computing
technologies has occurred at the speed of light, with computing power typically doubling in a
matter of months, and bulky desktop computers being replaced by laptops and laptops by tablets. 
The U.S. Government used to measure computing power in terms of millions of theoretical
operations per second.  Today, millions is an inadequate measure, so teraflops is being
increasingly used to reflect the astronomical increase in computing power just over the past 20
years.

The purpose of this background is to illuminate the difficulties
facing any company seeking to update its information technologies without also being willing to
replace its existing architecture.  There are limits to how much existing hardware and software
packages can be upgraded; at some point, the entire system has to be replaced.  Over time, it
becomes disproportionately costly to try to maintain aging €“ and, again, in IT terms, aging
might mean one or two years €“ equipment as the industry supporting it moves on to better
things.  Replacement parts cease to exist, and technicians become focused on the next generation
of systems to come along.  Additionally, compatibility with clients and among branches of an
organization begins to degrade as systems are replaced piecemeal and technologies continue to
advance.  In short, a strategic plan for improving an organizations information technologies
that fails to take into account the probable requirement to invest in an entirely new
architecture may be doomed to fail.  Technologies simply advance too quickly in this area, and
older systems are not always compatible with newer technologies.