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I work for an electronic healthcare software company; our industry (and others) use the term ‘go-live' to describe the time period at and following ‘cutover' – the moment at which an organization turns on our products. For example, the go-live is March 13 through 31 and cutover will take place at 3:30a.m. on the 13th.
‘Go live' makes sense, but ‘cutover' doesn't seem to have any logical association with the process. Online resources indicate cutover is used to describe as physical regions from which most of the salable timber has already been removed. For example, that land is completely cutover – there are no more trees to log.
Can you explain where the term ‘cutover' originates and how/why the software industry adopted it to have this meaning? It seems like the perfect word and I'd like to know the history behind why we use it this way.
A timely question as many TV stations have now cut their analog driving signal a replaced it with a digital information signal.
Perhaps, “cut over†means that the company must now deal with the task and complaints (lash back) generated by new customers using their software.
Cut over suggest an exact (3:30 a.m.) which is the edge of the switch over.
I believe the origin of this particular use of “cutover†has nothing at all do to with lumber. From what I can see, it comes us to from telephony around 1900-1915.
The “cut†in “cutover†refers, I believe, to cutting one line and switching the service, then, “over†to another. It's a pretty standard way to construct a bit of jargon. As you can see by this 1903 article, it may very well have been a literal cut rather than a figurative one.
From there, I think you can see how it might be generalized and used in other aspects of technology to mean “to switch from a system to a similar type of system with little or no down time.â€
All of the early uses of “cutover†which seem to be used at all like the “cutover†we use in computer technology today seem to be related to telephony. Here are two: 1913 and 1914.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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