THE VALUE OF SOFTWARE

Software is the fuel on which modern businesses are run, governments rule, and societies become better connected. Software has helped us create, access, and visualize information in previously inconceivable ways and forms. Globally, the breathtaking pace of progress in software has helped drive the growth of the world's economy. On a more human scale, software- intensive products have helped cure the sick and have given voice to the speechless, mobility to the impaired, and opportunity to the less able. From all these perspectives, software is an indispensable part of our modern world. ^[1]

^[1] Grady Booch, "Leaving Kansas," IEEE Software 15(1), January “February 1998, pp. 32 “35.

The good news for software professionals is that worldwide economies depend increasingly on software. The kinds of software-intensive systems that technology makes possible and society demands are expanding in size , complexity, distribution, and importance.

The bad news is that the expansion of these systems in size, complexity, distribution, and importance pushes the limits of what we in the software industry know how to develop. Trying to advance legacy systems to more modern technology brings its own set of technical and organizational problems. Compounding the problem is that businesses continue to demand increased productivity and improved quality with faster development and deployment. Additionally, the supply of qualified development personnel is not keeping pace with the demand.

The net result is that building and maintaining software is hard and getting harder; building quality software in a repeatable and predictable fashion is harder still.