Why Don't We Push For Software Quality?

By Roland Piquepaille

Among other things, it showed that "89% of the 800 IT managers contacted say they've experienced software-quality problems within the past year that resulted in higher costs, lost revenue, or both; second was that less than 70% of the IT managers seem to hold software vendors responsible for or able to repair those problems."

The same InformationWeek research shows that rather than asking vendors to fix a problem, a vast preponderance of the IT managers surveyed are opting to have their own programmers fix problems, would rather trash or simply stop using a flawed product, or--in a mind-boggling finding--will suffer with the poor-performing product simply because it's already been paid for.

Here is the chart showing these results.

Think about that for a second. In what other conceivable market (other than, perhaps, barbering) would aggrieved consumers not expect as a matter of course that a provider of a product or service make good on a bum deal? Yet that is precisely the case when it comes to software.

Could a restaurateur, a carmaker, a hotelier, or a newsstand operator in effect bilk customers and have those customers simply walk away without balking? Better still, would any of their customers simply agree to cook their own meals, fix their own cars, make their own beds, or go without a newspaper even after the meal, the car, the bed, and the paper had already been paid for?

Very interesting: read it!

Source: Lou Bertin, InformationWeek, May 27, 2002