Depending on your purpose, recent information might be critical. For example, to do a Porter’s Five Forces on the smartphone industry, we would not wish for OBU Research Reports that discuss the iPhone 4. Those reports do not reflect the current state of industry.
However, for certain purposes such as defining a model and its limitations, it might not be as important to have the latest information. Porter’s self-written articles, in 1995, will do a good job in defining the Five Forces.
