NSF Wants To Know How Much Software Really Costs

eldavojohn writes "It's no secret that the actual cost of software is very complicated. Sure, the companies that write software are spending money on it, but when that software is released, it doesn't stop costing money. You can probably think of a number of relatively tiny things that add up — especially if you're a system administrator — like the man-hours spent patching software to avoid a nasty infection spreading quickly. The bigger debt is that old piece of software you paid a bunch of money for back in 1998 that you're critically dependent on, but it has no support and hasn't been updated in years due to any number of reasons. Well, the National Science Foundation paid Gartner almost half a million dollars to find out what it truly costs to bring an organization to a fully supported environment. According to Gartner, this hidden liability or 'IT debt' is at $500 billion worldwide right now, and in five years it will be at $1 trillion. Along similar lines, a company called Cast that makes software quality tools reported that your average business application comes with a million in IT debt (PDF). And if that's not misapplied enough for you, they estimate that the debt is $2.82 per line of code in the application and also that it's on average higher in the government sector."

Comments

Ya this is retarded

[Sycraft-fu]

Oh you have to work to keep something up? No shit, never heard of that before. I mean our building we are in, we spend nothing on that. Well except for janitorial staff. Oh and lightbulb replacements. And roof maintenance. And new furniture. And HVAC maintenance. And elevator maintenance....

Seriously, when you buy something the total cost is never just the up front price. You don't plunk down cash and then never again have to spend any time or money for the thing to work perfectly. In some cases it may be direct monetary costs at certain points. The roof at work is a good example, we had to have it largely replaced a couple years ago. Not because of a problem, but because the building is like 40 years old. Had to pay tens of thousands of dollars to do that, which was budgeted. Some of it is indirect, just regular maintenance you have to pay someone for. Our custodial staff is a good example. While some of what they do, like say wash windows, is just aesthetic, much of what they do is necessary upkeep to keep the building in good condition. There isn't a precise dollar figure on each job they do, it is just a general cost that is their salaries. Some stuff has just a time cost, more or less. Like yesterday I dusted off my MIDI keyboard. Needed to be done both because the dust is annoying and because excess dust can work in to the electronics and cause damage.

Why would software be any different? Yes, you have to spend time and money above just the initial cost. You have to patch it, some software has yearly support contract cost (like say RHEL), you have to have support staff to make it work and help people with it, and so on.

I fail to see how this is a "debt" of any sort. It is a "cost" like any other. The more software you use, the more cost ther'll be not just purchase cost but also support cost. This is surprising to nobody who understands how this shit works. This is also why the price tag on software is often not a big deal. Doesn't matter is a package costs $50,000 whereas another costs $50. If the $50,000 ones saves $100,000 in support and other costs (like lost productivity) it is worth its price easily.

To me this sounds like the kind of thing a dumb manager would say: "You mean that price we paid for our software 6 years ago isn't the only thing it cost! Holy shit we have software debt!"

Re:Ya this is retarded

[DragonWriter]

I fail to see how this is a "debt" of any sort.

"Technology debt" (or "technical debt") is referred to as a debt because it has effects that are very similar to financial debt. First, it has a cost to resolve, which is analogous to the principal of a financial debt. Second, it has imposes ongoing costs until it is resolved, which works like the interest on a financial debt. Thirdly, the starting value of the cost to resolve -- the principal -- is often greater than the costs which could habe been paid out of pocket initially instead of incurring the debt, making it analogous to the various initial costs associate with many financial debts.

To me this sounds like the kind of thing a dumb manager would say: "You mean that price we paid for our software 6 years ago isn't the only thing it cost! Holy shit we have software debt!"

The "technical debt" terminology was invented by people who understood the technical problems and the consequences (mostly, of trying to minimize the initial costs of developing or acquiring technology-based solutions to business problems) as a means of explaining the issue to managers and executives, who generally understand financial concepts like "debt" much better than they understand technical processes.

 

Re:And..?

[zippthorne]

Parent is not missing the point.

The point was this: as the library of off-the-shelf solutions grows, it's possible that what what you once had to do with custom software is now neatly covered with some vendor's standard offering, or in the parent's case, what he had to do with expensive vendors' software can now be done with even less expensive open source solutions.

Re:Business Management Rebuttal

[martin-boundary]

Nonsense. The health effects are not linear with the number of work hours, they are more pronounced the more hours you work. Moreover, working over the weekends in addition to a full working week directly reduces the recuperative function of time off. But you're just trolling, I guess.