The Software Crisis
A Report from 1979
The Chaos Report


A series of reports issued by The Standish
Group, an industry analysis firm
Classifies software projects into 3 classes:
̵
̵
̵

Successful: all features within time and budget
constraints
Challenged: late, over budget, and/or with
reduced functionality
Canceled before completion or never used
Debatable whether this reflects what the
industry considers success
The Chaos Report

First report in 1994:
̵
̵
16% of projects successful
53% of projects challenged
31% of projects canceled
̵


Several reports since then with fluctuating
numbers, but general improvement
2015 update (worse than some previous years):
̵
̵
̵
29% of projects successful
52% of projects challenged
19% of projects canceled
Fast Forward to 2013-4
The Risks digest
• 12/9/14: international study: 60% of apps fail
basic privacy tests
• 24/2/14: Apple’s SSL does not check certificates
• 18/9/13: UK National Health Services new IT
system is a failure, cost is 6.4 billion pounds, or
maybe actually 9.8 billion, or more…
• 22/8/13: NASDAQ stock market down for 3
hours because of software problems
• 11/1/13: IBM’s Watson computer natural
language facility starts using “bullshit” in
answers to queries.
BUT…
Software Magazine
Software 500 report
Software 500 2014: 7.1% Revenue Growth
• Total 2014 Software 500 revenue is $717.7
billion, up from last year’s $670.2.
• The total number of employees in the
Software 500 was down 1% to 4,884,000, after
years of growth.
• Average R&D investment was 13.4% of
revenue
• Top 7 companies are IBM, Microsoft, Oracle,
Accenture, Hewlett-Packard, EMC, and SAP