Computers Today, July 16-31, 2000; Master File; Software conspiracy [Contn.]

.. Computers Today

July 16-31, 2000 MASTER FILE

Software conspiracy
Contd...

The Quality Drive

Sounds like the Detroit game all over again, doesn't it? But wait: there's more. Inspired by Deming's writings, software development expert Watts Humphrey-an ex-IBM executive who is now affiliated with Carnegie-Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute (SEI)-developed a version of Deming's work for the software industry. And guess what? Software vendors in the United States aren't listening to Humphrey. One reason they're not listening is that they're too busy jeering Humphrey and ridiculing his work, which is exactly what US auto-industry executives did to Deming in the 1950s. (Deming eventually gave up and moved to Japan.)

What's Humphrey saying? It's simple: software companies can make high-quality products, and what's more, doing so isn't expensive. Humphrey's work has evolved into the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), which shows software developers how to build quality from the get-go. It also provides a way of ranking a company's commitment to quality. At Level 1, companies aren't doing much of anything about quality. At Level 5, they're up to the Toyota level: they're building quality consciousness into everything they do, and they're constantly refining and improving their processes. What's more, CMM works. Using CMM-like methods, telecommunications giant US West Technologies was able to reduce service outages by 79 per cent, slice billing costs by $30 million and reduce service order errors by 50 per cent. There's an upfront investment required, to be sure, but it pays off in the long run. In 1990, the cost of ensuring quality at Raytheon Electronics Systems ate up nearly two-thirds of all software development costs. Thanks to CMM, Raytheon is putting out even better software, but the cost of assuring this quality has fallen below 10 per cent of software development budgets.

And what about bugs? Based in Chennai, India, a contract software developer called Advanced Information Services (AIS)-one of the few CMM Level 5 companies in existence-is cranking out code with only 0.05 defects per thousand lines of code. That's better than the space shuttle's software. This level of achievement isn't putting AIS out of business-far from it: their profits have doubled. On average, companies that adopt CMM realise a five-fold return on their investment.

The Indian Odyssey

Who's listening to Humphrey? CMM critics affiliated with Microsoft charge that CMM creates an unwieldy bureaucracy that forestalls the kind of brilliant innovation that's leading the software industry. Give me a break! If Microsoft supposedly exemplifies the type of organisation that would be "paralysed" by CMM to the point that it couldn't innovate, we might all be much better off. As near as I can tell, the lion's share of Microsoft products that could be termed "innovative" in some sense-MS-DOS, Windows, FrontPage and others-either originated outside the company, were based on ideas that were developed outside the company, or were acquired by purchasing an outside company. Microsoft's innovations seem limited to figuring out new ways of introducing dysfunctional extensions to prevailing standards for no other reason than the firm's desire to put its competitors out of business.

So who is listening? As of this writing, only 19 software firms are certified at Level 5, and 13 of them are in India. That's right: India. If you think India is a backward country that couldn't possibly compete in the high-tech sweepstakes, you'd better think again, because Indian software companies are putting out some of the best software in the world. Near Bangalore a CMM-driven, Level 5 shop is turning out software with 0.03 defects per thousand lines of code. Right now in the country, there's a replay of exactly the same process that energised the Japanese automobile industry thirty years ago. They see the opportunity. They have the talent. They know they can create world-class software. They're doing it right now.

When asked whether Indian software companies pose a threat to their near-stranglehold on the consumer software market, software executives in the United States laugh. They point out that these "silly foreign companies" don't know anything about style or marketing; there's no way they could make it in the United States market. Now where have we heard that before?

What Can You Do?

First, buy 10 copies of Mark Minasi's exceptionally fine book, The Software Conspiracy: Why Software Companies Put Out Faulty Products, How They Can Hurt You, and What You Can Do About It (McGraw-Hill) and give a copy to everyone you know who's in a position to influence software purchasing decisions. Maybe, mail them a copy of this article, too. My major criticism of Minasi's book is that he doesn't weave open-source software in general, and Linux in particular, into the picture. I believe Linux is exposing the need and the thirst for high-quality software, and that the high quality of Linux and other open-source programs is in large measure responsible for its rapid growth and acceptance.

Second, join the battle to promote software engineering, high-quality software, and responsible behaviour by vendors. Read Humphrey's comments on software quality at www.2bguide. com/docs/whsq.htmland, then visit the SEI at Carnegie-Mellon University. Third, convince any organisation with which you are affiliated-your school, your company, the non-profit organisations where you volunteer-that purchasing commercial vendors' products is aiding and abetting a process that is exposing the public to unwarranted risk, generating legislation that is harmful to public welfare and retarding the progress of technology. Show them Linux. Help them install the software. And invite them to consider what people are slowly but surely learning: you don't have to put up with shoddy software.

Bryan Pfaffenberger is a professor in the new Media Studies program at the University of Virginia. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Minasi's Jehad
An incisive, practical guide to fighting back against the
modern scourge of software 'bugs'

Software kills? Yes. Technology journalist Mark Minasi argues that it routinely destroys millions of work hours, files, deals and ideas. Most of us are familiar with computer problems, but how many realise that software victims also include people: a seven-year-old killed by bad fuel-injection software in a Chevrolet in Alabama, 28 soldiers lost to a missile-chip malfunction, 200 people on a flight to Guam blown to bits when an altitude warning device failed. Everyone uses software-whether in clocks, calculators, or PCs-and the future of the software industry affects us all.

"In fact, virtually all software is shipped with hundreds of known bugs. Some sources claim that Windows 3.1 shipped with 5,000 known bugs. Bugs wasted 65 million hours of usage time-that's how long people waited on hold on software support lines in 1996," Minasi writes in The Software Conspiracy: Why Software Companies Put out Faulty Products, How They Can Hurt You, and What You can Do About It (published by McGraw-Hill, 1999. Distributed in India by Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Co. Ltd, New Delhi).

Minasi advocates a "buyer beware" approach: "Companies make software and sell it to the public despite the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of defects in the software, defects that the company is fully aware of when it sells it-but won't tell you about. On the one hand, software companies call their software 'mission critical'; on the other hand, they deride the idea that they should strive to remove defects from that software." How do these companies get away with introducing defect-filled products into the marketplace? Minasi offers a surprisingly candid answer: People have such abysmally low expectations about software that very few complain. Thus, software companies sell whizbang features, while skimping on quality control. The cultural divisions within software companies also contribute to the problem. Marketing departments want dazzling features and a short design process, while programmers want time to create superior products. Mostly, marketing wins out. Moreover, the computer industry press rarely criticises software companies, who provide essential advertising revenues.

"I see word processors, E-mail packages, spreadsheets and Web browser software shipped by large, well-established software companies while those pieces of software are still riddled with defects. Products that literally cannot be made to work reliably. An industry where 15 per cent of the software firms don't even test their software before selling it to you," writes Minasi.

Minasi isn't optimistic about the ability of consumers to gain legal redress for software-related problems. He describes the flagrantly anti-consumer licensing agreements contained inside boxes of "shrink-wrapped" software. These licenses are basically one-sided contacts offered to consumers on a "take it or leave it" basis. What Minasi proposes is that consumers learn how to take care of themselves. He provides an array of troubleshooting suggestions to combat bugs, as well as practical advice on how to seek technical support. Minasi believes it's time to get mad at the industry that allows such things to happen. Nothing will move until there is a major change in public opinion. For the moment, the odds are stacked very much in the industry's favour.

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