Corporate developers
are frequently developing software for the largest-volume application
environment, Microsoft Windows. But Microsoft itself specializes in writing
large, sophisticated applications. It writes them for Windows and for the
Mac© OS, and it is the leading application vendor in both markets. Not
surprisingly, Microsoft continues to add new application features to Windows,
such as Object Linking and Embedding (OLE), that can be most efficiently
exploited by virtuoso multiapplication development teams like its own.
Microsoft isn't alone in this respect. Companies that create traditional system
software strive constantly to add new features that increase the things their
systems can do--features that small development teams often have difficulty
exploiting successfully. This situation favors large commercial software
companies and penalizes corporate developers with small teams, short product
cycles, and limited product deployment.
As David Taylor and others have pointed out, the volume of information that
corporations and other rapidly evolving information-based organizations must
handle is exceeding their capacity to process it (Taylor, 1990). Most corporate
developers are facing a growing backlog at the same time that they're facing
budget cuts and increasingly frustrated users. As much as 80 or 90 percent of
most information services (IS) budgets goes to maintaining existing software, so
it's very difficult to get ahead. Corporate developers are also under pressure to
downsize to less expensive machines. Off-the-shelf libraries and software
packages provide generic solutions for some processing tasks, but they are often
just as difficult to adapt to new circumstances as custom packages developed
within a company; and because they are generic, they provide little or no
competitive differentiation.
Frequently late, over budget, and in many cases obsolete before they ever get
used, corporate software projects are notorious for creating bottlenecks. When
software is an essential part of a product, the slow pace of development directly
impedes a company's ability to differentiate itself and compete in new markets.
An article by W. Wayt Gibbs in the September 1994 issue of Scientific American
lists some of the more spectacular software disasters in recent history,
including the California Department of Motor Vehicles attempt to merge the
state's driver and vehicle registration systems, which cost over $43 million and
was abandoned without ever being used; the failed $165 million attempt by
American Airlines to link its flight-reservation software with the reservation
systems of Marriott, Hilton, and Budget; and the Denver airport's computerized
baggage system, which contributed to the delay in the airport's opening at a cost
of hundreds of millions of dollars. These are extreme examples, but similar
disasters on a smaller scale are now part of everyday life in corporate America.
The software crisis affects everyone, including millions of people who never
touch a computer.
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