Software engineering challenges a CIO's perspective

To be competitive in today's market, businesses face many challenges in the development and maintenance of information systems. These systems are usually widely distributed. They incorporate highly critical corporate knowledge, which has to be easily accessible and maintainable. Engineering these large systems efficiently requires making decisions about a number of issues. Decisions about whether to build or buy software affect qualities of the software such as customization and reusability, and decisions about mobility of services affect qualities of the software such as maintainability. Moreover, for improved reliability, techniques that can provide seamless but secure and reliable information flow and transaction processing, although expensive, must be integrated into the development process. Finally, systems must be adaptable to new technologies such as wireless computing. Old existing legacy software has to be integrated with new web-based applications such as portals or the whole world of “e”.