1. Software maintenance: the cost for
vendors and what it means to you…
Nicolas C. Hans
dotCast Consulting Services
September 2008

2. Maintenance, the last line on the invoice
 Software maintenance has bad
press with both buyers and
vendors:
 “el impuesto revolucionario”
 An annual cost of 12 to 20%
of the list price for large
systems
 As part of support costs,
software maintenance fees
have a significant impact on
the Total Cost
of Ownership/Operation (TCO)

3. The cost of maintenance for software vendors
 “The modification of a software
product after delivery to correct Requirements Analysis 3%
faults […] improve performance […]
or to adapt the product to a Specification 3%
modified environment”
 The total cost of system Design 5%
maintenance for a vendor is
estimated to be at least 60%
of the total product life cycle costs Coding 7%
Testing 3%
Estimated cost of software Operations & maintenance 67%
engineering and design
Source: ISO/IEC 14764 and “Principles of software engineering and design”,
Zelkowitz, M.V. Shaw, A.C., and Ganon, J.D., 1979.

4. Maintenance, the hidden part of the iceberg
 Software is a product whereas
maintenance is a service Requirements Analysis,
specifications, design, coding
 Two recent trends and testing
in the software industry try 1/3
to change the paradigm:
 Open Source Initiative(GNU GPL) Operations & maintenance
 Software As A Service (SaaS)
2/3

5. There’s more to maintenance than bug fixes…
 Corrective maintenance
 Bug fixing (“residual errors”)
 Trigger: a problem report from an end-user
 Adaptive maintenance
 Adapting software to changes in the hardware or O/S platform
 Trigger: none. Monitoring the software environment
 Perfective maintenance
 Enhancing the system features and functions
 Trigger: a modification request from an end-user
 Preventive maintenance
 Increasing a system’s maintainability by updating documentation,
commenting code, improving the modular structure of the system
Source: ISO/IEC 14764

6. Users drive the maintenance effort…
Preventive, 5%
Corrective,
20%
Perfective, Adaptive, 25%
50%
Source: “Software maintenance management: a study of the maintenace of computer application
software in 487 data processing organizations”, Lientz, B.P. and Swanson, E.B. 1980

7. Maintenance issues faced by software vendors
 Vendors face a number of issues when maintaining software systems:
 Unstructured code
 Poor development practices
 Insufficient knowledge of the maintenance team
 Original developers rarely ensure long-term maintenance
 Lack of documentation
 Understanding of user environment is limited
 Software maintenance has a bad image
 It’s the last wagon of the software development cycle

8. Specifics of software for broadcast environments
 Bespoke developments
 Number of specific integrations rapidly give way to custom solutions
 Mission critical environments
 From black screens to dead air
 High profile users
 Floating standards
 MOS, MXF…
 Regulatory issues
 Amortization of broadcast specific devices is often different
from IT ones requiring for longer support of legacy devices
 Requirements of as-run logs, unions,…

9. Factors that directly impact maintenance costs
1. Size
 The larger a system, the larger the effort to maintain it
 Maintenance=(complexity)
2. Age
 The older the system, the more legacy of changes needs to be taken
into account, the less likely the original development team available
3. Number of inputs/outputs
 Integration with third party systems
4. Documentation (or lack of)
 …

10. What to look for when buying
maintenance contracts…

11. Practice due diligence of maintenance services
 Check the vendor’s infrastructure
 Do they have a dedicated support and maintenance team?
 How can users submit problem reports and modification requests?
 Do they have a central repository and queuing system?
 Do they have a user group?
 Do they provide 24/7 hotline services?
 …
 Review the Service Level Agreement (SLA)
 Updates and upgrades
 Response times for bugs and change requests
 Penalties for delays and downtime
 …

12. Negotiate your maintenance fee
 Remember that for some vendors the logic is to “give away the razor and
charge for the blades”
 Negotiate purchase price first…
 then the maintenance price,
 then the impact of paying upfront 3 to 5 years maintenance fees (if
your organization can afford it)
 Negotiate maintenance cost on the basis of the purchase price instead
of the list price
 Setup a penalty system if SLAs are not met (service credits)
 Beware of annual increases in maintenance cost…

13. Optimize the service that you get
 Train your support team: your own support staff will be a lot quicker
to solve issues than the vendor’s hotline
 When implementing a system for the first time, hire good consultants
that know the product well and learn from them
 Minimize the amount of customizations required
 Upgrade to the next release as soon as possible
 Have a stand-alone test system to validate updates and upgrades
 Document your system
 Invest in the relationship with the vendor’s support team
 Attend training sessions organized by your supplier
 Make sure that your supplier is well informed about your plans
Source: http://www.supportandmaintenance.org/support/self-service/230-gain-more-from-your-software-supplier.html

14. A few worthwhile links:
www.supportandmaintenance.org
Software Maintenance Maturity Model (SMmm)
Nicolas C. Hans
nhans@dotcast.tv
+33 687 549 166