Characteristics of Application Software Maintenance
Maintenance and enhancement of application
software consume a major portion of the total life 
cycle cost of a system.  Rough estimates of the total
systems and programming resources consumed range 
as high as 75-80 percent in each category.  However,
the area has been given little attention in the 
literature.  To analyze the problems in this area a
questionnaire was developed and pretested.  It was 
then submitted to 120 organizations.  Respondents totaled
69.  Responses were analyzed with the SPSS 
statistical package.  The results of the analysis indicate
that: (1) maintenance and enhancement do consume 
much of the total resources of systems and programming
groups; (2) maintenance and enhancement tend to 
be viewed by management as at least somewhat more important
than new application software development; 
(3) in maintenance and enhancement, problems of a management
orientation tend to be more significant 
than those of a technical orientation; and (4) user
demands for enhancements and extension constitute 
the most important management problem area.
CACM June, 1978
Lientz, B.P.
Swanson, E.B.
Tompkins, G.E.
