ALDI admits it’s still running Windows 95 during Senate hearings
ALDI supermarkets have been forced to admit it is running off a computer system so old, it is unable to display its prices online. Dr Mumbo can confirm the entire supermarket chain’s IT infrastructure is being run off an old Pentium 100 PC, running Windows 95.
The revelation was made during the ACCC’s supermarket inquiry hearings in Canberra on Monday, where ALDI’s MD of national buying, Jordan Lack, was grilled about its lack of price transparency online, preventing shoppers from freely comparing prices between supermarkets.
“We are going through an IT transformation which, at the point of completion, we will look at whether [displaying prices online is] possible,” Lack said.
“It’s really a technical limitation that we have at the moment as opposed to a desire not to publish them. Given the position we hold in the market as having the cheapest groceries, we would love for more customers to be able to see the price of those goods.”
Dr Mumbo was keen to learn more about the supermarket giant’s computing set up, so he contacted Lack, who led us down into a downstairs bedroom at his step-father’s house, where a single Pentium 100 computer running Windows 95 is set up.
“It can do all the payroll, no problems, the catalogue design, some of those six-feet signs you saw during COVID”, Lack tells Dr. Mumbo.
“I spilled Fanta on the keyboard, so you might wanna avoid the Num Lock key,” he adds.
Lack said ALDI also had a full version of Encarta 95, for research purposes, as well as a shareware copy of Doom II, “which has a lot of different levels for a free version”.
The ACCC hearings are continuing.
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If you guys really believe this baloney then you are just as naive as the commission. I guess they still use pagers, and fax machines to order goods with suppliers too right. They also probably do a stock take with whites, blues, and pinks sheets, and an abacus. I guess if their computer system is windows 95, then the progressive Aldi exec team and store managers must be using Nokia p11 or Ericsson 338 phones to talk to each other.
I hate it when legitimate new sources mix in fake articles
I had to read this a couple of times, and check the URL to confirm I wasn’t on The Onion website!
There was no shareware release of Doom II, those liars!
This has got to be a (bad) joke, right?
Maybe ALDI stands for “Anciently Lapsed Data Infotech”.
What! why the hell would you risk using an old unreliable system to run your business. Unbelievably stupid.
Comedy gold.
Funnily enough I’m still using a PC with Windows 95 to run my business accounts, Pentium 75, 16mb RAM (which I upgraded from 8mb).