You know I like big numbers -- and funny stories too. So here we go.
Software bugs are costing the U.S. economy an estimated $59.5 billion each year, with more than half of the cost borne by end users and the remainder by developers and vendors, according to a new federal study.
Improvements in testing could reduce this cost by about a third, or $22.5 billion, but it won't eliminate all software errors, the study said. Of the total $59.5 billion cost, users incurred 64% of the cost and developers 36%.
The findings were released yesterday in a 309-page study (download in PDF format) conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a federal agency that conducts extensive research on technology issues.
I know, it's not an Aberdeen Group report, but an official one. But who will read this 309-page study? What kind of methods were used? Why a $59.5 billion loss? Why not $61.2 or $57.8 billion? What kind of testing will improve the situation by $22.5 billion?
On a day where we learned that WorldCom fired its CFO after "playing" with about $4 billion, everything can be credible. But I don't buy the NIST story.
I'm sure that buggy software costs lots of money, but how can you predict the amount of the losses due to it?
Source: Patrick Thibodeau, Computerworld, June 25, 2002
7:02:50 PM Permalink
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