Future of software depends on standards

Future of software depends on standards

A recent report by the IDC has revealed that 70 percent of the respondents believe that the future of software depends on standards.

The survey also revealed that a number of concerns regarding technology standardisation currently exist in the market, such as the amount of time it takes to define standards and the perception that there may be too many competing standards.

The IDC believes that vendors leading these efforts have both a challenge and opportunity to educate and involve enterprises to ensure the successful adoption and use of standards.

Sandra Rogers, programme director of IDC's web services software service believes that overall, a fairly positive opinion exists in the marketing regarding how standards bodies are being run, but there was still need for greater awareness:

"The concerns expressed by survey participants all speak to the complexity of creating industrywide, agreed-upon standards. Perhaps increased education and hands-on involvement from users can work to dispel some of these growing concerns and assure standards truly meet market requirements.

"Too many companies have invested tremendous cash and resources toward not only implementing systems but integrating and maintaining those systems for years. If future spending is indeed to take place, as much risk as possible needs to be alleviated from the equation. Ensuring future interoperability is a primary concern."

The survey revealed that those actively pursuing technology standardisation believe that the most important reason to adopt standards is for the future compatibility of software.

25 percent of respondents indicated they are only evaluating standards as a new computing or architectural model, while another 25 percent indicated they currently have no plans of pursuing standards.

Those with no plans cited lack of resources, budget, and low priority to their organisations as a reasons for not investing in technology or architecture changes based on specific technology standards.

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