Software Upgrades, Revisited

Under this new regime, when you purchased your software with your batteries, you would upgrade as you go. When your batteries ran out, you would replace them. And when you did, you would get the latest version of the software applicable to your device.

Notice that this has an interesting property: It couples the shelf life of the battery to the useful life of the software, so we wouldn't have to worry about obsolete versions of software lying around.

What about the cost of the upgrade or, more generically, the cost of the software? No one in his right mind thinks that the batteries for his cell phone should be free. So your batteries would cost a little more, of course, because you'd have to cover the software development expenses. But those expenses would be spread over the cost of all the batteries onto which the software is piggybacked.

There is also this wonderful coincidence. Someone who used his device sparingly would replace batteries infrequently. However, whenever he did, he would automatically be upgraded to a recent version of his software. On the other hand, someone who used his device constantly would go through a lot of batteries and would therefore typically be replacing his software with identical copies of what he had been using. The intensive user would see little or no change over time, and the infrequent user would see "step" changes in his software when he swapped out his batteries, something he would do rarely. So there would be a really good match between upgrades and the respective usage patterns.

As the software that goes onto the battery would have to be completely self-contained, we would forever do away with the notion of patching old software. You would throw away your old software with your dead battery, and your fresh battery would start over again. Manufacturers would have to be clever to ensure that features wouldn't change abruptly. At the worst, there might have to be some release notes for your new batteries. I think marketing folks could put the appropriate spin on this and turn it into an attractive feature.

The big advantage of this model is that it saves users from having to download software upgrades from the Internet. Which is easier: doing a download and installation of software from the Internet, or just changing the batteries? Ask your mom.