Wednesday, November 23, 2011

App Law?

Most organizations use some type of home-grown application for one reason or the other. These applications can be as simple as a single user Excel spreadsheet or as complex as interdependent line-of-business software products servicing 100s of users. All these applications, regardless of their complexity (or simplicity), usually run their courses… Sometimes we end up spending a great deal of money to replace the product only to find ourselves in the same situation within a short period of time.

Many factors such as organizational changes, business process reengineering, feature enhancement and new technologies impact the life span of these applications. These days, it almost seems that software life span keeps getting shorter and shorter, or at the very least, applications get branded as ‘legacy app’ in a hurry. How long does it take for an application to turn into a ‘legacy app’? There are off course many applications on the market with great longevity, and they continue to bring value to organizations. But there are also many applications that quickly become a headache. Is it the result of bad decision making in designing the applications? Or is it the fast changing technology forcing our products to become archaic within one or two years. We all know about Moore’s law. Some time ago, I also read an article about Android’slaw. Maybe it’s time to consider ‘App Law’…

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