The Problem
Adobe Flash Retirement
Flash was a software platform used for producing animations, graphics, video players, and more. Due to the emergence of newer technologies, Flash had been on a downward trend for years, with major companies such as YouTube removing support for it. By the end of 2020, even Adobe (the developers of Flash) planned to stop supporting it. By the middle of January 2021, all Flash content would be completely blocked from running. This effectively meant that any software relying on it would cease to function.
Software and Potential Loss of Revenue
The company described here, a systems integrator from Illinois, was a developer and provider of factory monitoring software directly to corporations. At the time, it was, and probably still is, used by manufacturing companies on multiple continents to offer real-time and historical data reporting to managers. Without this software, these businesses would lose most or all of their insight into production numbers, downtime issues, and other historical trends. Each year, this software was responsible for generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from support contracts, which would have evaporated if the software had stopped operating.
A core component of this software was built using Flash, which meant that without an update before January 2021, the software would be practically useless for its intended purpose. The specific feature at hand was a visual tool that enabled users to generate and view charts, graphs, and tables. It was in early December 2020 when the potentially dire consequences of not updating this feature began to emerge.
The Solution
A Race Against the Clock
With just a month left before factories around the world would lose the data reporting they had grown reliant upon, I was assigned the responsibility of devising a solution. At the initial glance, accomplishing the update within the given timeframe appeared to be an insurmountable challenge. The software was highly intricate, providing hundreds or even thousands of customization combinations. Additionally, since this specific feature had remained unchanged or updated for a significant period, no one within the company possessed an in-depth understanding of its underlying mechanisms.
My research revealed that there were actually only 4–5 chart types that needed updating. All other customizations were essentially layers built upon these core elements. If I could upgrade these elements using more contemporary technologies, we ought to be able to implement the software without any disruption for our clients. In the upcoming weeks, I would work on updating each chart type, guaranteeing that they resembled the existing ones precisely. The ultimate objective was to make the new charts completely indistinguishable from the current Flash-based versions.
The Result
New Years
Shortly after New Year's Day, the development and testing work were concluded. The charts were indistinguishable from the previous versions, and the only thing that remained was to deploy the new software to the clients.
After deployment, I was also tasked with monitoring and resolving issues as required. As is common with significant software updates, particularly those on tight deadlines, bugs (software issues) were anticipated to arise. However, the retirement of Flash came and went without a single client reporting a bug or seeking assistance from the company. We also contacted several of the most prominent users to gather their feedback, and they confirmed that they observed no discernible changes in the software. The update was a success!
Saved Revenue
The deployment of this update led to the prevention of losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue within the first year. Failing to address this issue before experiencing downtime could have potentially undermined the trust of the company's clients. This might have resulted in the cancellation of ongoing support contracts and the refusal to acquire additional software licenses. In the subsequent years, this revenue loss could have potentially aggregated to an amount exceeding one million dollars.
Risk to Manufacturing Clients
In a previous case study involving this software, a client reported a 20% increase in their manufacturing production numbers. For their specific business, this translated to an additional revenue of twenty million dollars. The usage of this software was so widespread that if it were to suddenly vanish, the losses incurred by manufacturing businesses would have been immeasurable.