New Bill Of Rights For The Digital AgeNew Bill Of Rights For The Digital Age

IT buyers are mad and aren't going to take it anymore. That's why a group of CIOs, along with leading computer vendors and AMR Research, penned the Software Bill of Rights, a document that outlines software buyers' expectations. "There's a high level of frustration over software quality," says Bob Parker, an AMR research fellow in Boston involved in the project. Up to 50% of software cost results from ongoing maintenance and integration activities, AMR says. If IT departments simplify those tasks and cut associated costs, companies could free up resources to invest in new areas, he adds.

The Software Bill of Rights, released this week [Jan. 14], stipulates that buyers have the right to expect a quality product, accurate delivery schedules, explicit pricing, development accountability, and effective technical support. The document doesn't have the force of law behind it, but it's a good first step in getting key industry players to agree to some basic ground rules in the buyer-seller relationship.

Qualcomm senior VP and CIO Norm Fjeldheim, who helped develop the Bill of Rights, says anything that helps buyers get better-quality software is a plus. "We spend so much time and money dealing with software problems, it's ridiculous," Fjeldheim says. To demonstrate the extent of the problem, Fjeldheim notes that Qualcomm sometimes receives bug fixes from vendors that actually end up wreaking havoc with its systems. "Some patches break more things than they fix," he says.

The IT organizations that participated in the development of the Software Bill of Rights include Becton Dickinson, Boeing, Cabot, Conexant, Eastman Chemical, General Dynamics, Honeywell, Kraft, Qualcomm, Teradyne, and others. Vendor particpants include Blue Martini, BMC Software, BroadVision, i2 Technologies, J.D. Edwards, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Siebel, among others.

The meeting in which the bill of rights was first discussed took place last year in Boston. Participants joked about going down to Boston Harbor and throwing software CDs in the water, reminiscent of the Boston Tea Party.

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