Survey Reveals Software “Practice Gap” Doubles in 12 Months: Organizations’ Development Practices out of Alignment with Pr

November 7, 2011

Tools

8 Out of 10 Development Organizations “At Risk,” Lack Access to High Impact Application Exception Data, According to PreEmptive Solutions Survey

CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Results of a survey released today by PreEmptive Solutions, the leading provider of solutions to measure, manage, and protect software development investments, reveal a growing “practice gap” in which development organizations lack reliable access to exception data as well as the ability to consistently respond to these production incidents. While the percentage of developers who recognize the importance of exception analytics has increased by 50 percent year over year, the percentage of those developers who only rarely or only occasionally have access to this self-described critical data has doubled, from 45 percent in October 2010 to 90 percent in October 2011.

In addition, the survey showed that eight out of ten development organizations lack access to application exception data. The survey was conducted during the week of October 10, 2011, to capture best practices in the use of software exception analytics in improving software quality and customer experience. It incorporates the responses of 320 development organizations representing 222 companies across 56 industries and 40 countries.

Among the key findings:

79% of respondents explicitly identified exception analytics as offering material improvements while at the same time admitting to having little or no access to exception reports and associated forensic data;
71% of respondents indicated they rarely or only occasionally have access to exception analytics stemming from unhandled exceptions;
72% of respondents either rarely or only occasionally benefit from automated production incident response systems;
Only 15% of ISV respondents (software vendors) and 31% of manufacturing firms indicated they either “often” or “always” had access to unhandled exception analytics.
Conversely, the majority of Health Service organizations and Telecommunications respondents indicated they had such access (53% and 55% respectively).

“The survey shows that while automated exception analytics are recognized as providing material value to software quality and performance, a significant segment of the development community has little or no access to this valuable resource,” noted PreEmptive Solutions CMO Sebastian Holst. “The explosive growth in distributed computing platforms, smartphones and rich Internet frameworks is compounding the issue, making it increasingly difficult for development organizations to collect critical diagnostic information.”

When application exceptions occur “in the wild,” diagnostic information is typically difficult to capture, limited in scope, inefficiently delivered, difficult to analyze, and expensive to manage. Exception analytics improve software quality and customer satisfaction; accelerate development velocity by improving defect detection and correction; prioritize development, focusing on critical and frequent issues; and reduce overall development and support expense.

A complete copy of the survey report is available upon request.

About PreEmptive Solutions
PreEmptive Solutions measures, manages and protects software across on-premise, cloud and mobile platforms. With more than 4,000 corporate clients and inclusion with Microsoft’s Visual Studio since 2003, PreEmptive Solutions is the clear choice for any organization serious about measuring and protecting its application investments. For more information, visit www.preemptive.com or call +1.440.443.7200.

Online:
Web: www.preemptive.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/PreEmptive
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/PreEmptive-Solutions
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/companies/52751
YouTube: www.youtube.com/PreEmptiveSolutions