October 11, 2010 at 17:36What is your company's “IT debt”?
Recently, Gartner, an analytical company, published a curious press release which estimates the size of the global “IT debt” this year at $ 500 billion, with the potential to increase it to one trillion dollars in five years. What are they talking about?
The concept of "IT-debt" appeared in the circulation of IT consultants recently, but has already caused a lot of criticism . This is a kind of metaphor, which is designed to hint at the need to pay interest annually (by analogy with public debt) if the company does not spend significant resources on updating its software.
The concept of “IT debt” is based on two points.
The growth of IT debt is directly related to the increase in the number of software that is in circulation. For example, one of the corporate software developers estimates IT debt at $ 2.82 for each line of code . Thus, the IT debt for an average application of 374,000 lines of code is $ 1 million. The more software in the global economy, the higher its dependence on IT, the higher the IT debt.
Last year, the US National Science Society issued a grant of $ 465 thousand.to study the concept of IT-debt and its consequences.
What follows from this and what should we do - economists have not yet come up with. Maybe it's just sophistry in the traditional style of business consultants. Such concepts are ideal for dusting the brains of clients from the corporate environment who have ordered consulting services. A sort of horror story in the style of Y2K, they say, if you do not pay for a software upgrade, thenall computers will shut downincrease your debt and you will always pay interest.
Or maybe this is something serious and some kind of negative for the economy. But even so, the software industry will be pleased to know that the global economy is increasingly dependent on IT infrastructure and has become hooked on information technology. For example, the NYSE stock exchange in its modern form cannot be imagined without a computer information network and a purely electronic exchange NASDAQ. Many other businesses also turn into a purely software phenomenon.
The concept of "IT-debt" appeared in the circulation of IT consultants recently, but has already caused a lot of criticism . This is a kind of metaphor, which is designed to hint at the need to pay interest annually (by analogy with public debt) if the company does not spend significant resources on updating its software.
The concept of “IT debt” is based on two points.
- The relevance of any corporate software decreases over time (without appropriate support / updates).
- There is a certain difference between the minimum and high-quality level of support / updating of corporate software. This difference directly affects the efficiency of the company's employees.
The growth of IT debt is directly related to the increase in the number of software that is in circulation. For example, one of the corporate software developers estimates IT debt at $ 2.82 for each line of code . Thus, the IT debt for an average application of 374,000 lines of code is $ 1 million. The more software in the global economy, the higher its dependence on IT, the higher the IT debt.
Last year, the US National Science Society issued a grant of $ 465 thousand.to study the concept of IT-debt and its consequences.
What follows from this and what should we do - economists have not yet come up with. Maybe it's just sophistry in the traditional style of business consultants. Such concepts are ideal for dusting the brains of clients from the corporate environment who have ordered consulting services. A sort of horror story in the style of Y2K, they say, if you do not pay for a software upgrade, then
Or maybe this is something serious and some kind of negative for the economy. But even so, the software industry will be pleased to know that the global economy is increasingly dependent on IT infrastructure and has become hooked on information technology. For example, the NYSE stock exchange in its modern form cannot be imagined without a computer information network and a purely electronic exchange NASDAQ. Many other businesses also turn into a purely software phenomenon.