Source: A very good website: http://www.softwareqatest.com/qatfaq1.html
"What are some recent major computer system failures caused by
software bugs?
- News reports in December of 2007 indicated that significant software problems were continuing to occur in a new ERP payroll system for a large urban school system. It was believed that more than 1/3 of employees received incorrect paychecks at various times since the new system went live in January of that year, resulting in overpayments of $53 million, as well as underpayments. An employees' union brought a lawsuit against the school system, the cost of the ERP system was expected to rise by 40%, and the non-payroll part of the ERP system was delayed. Inadequate testing reportedly contributed to the problems.
- In November of 2007 a regional government reportedly brought a multi-million dollar lawsuit against a software services vendor, claiming that the vendor 'minimized quality' in delivering software for a large criminal justice information system & the system did not meet requirements. The vendor also sued its subcontractor...
- In June of 2007 news reports claimed that software flaws in a popular online stock-picking contest could be used to gain an unfair advantage in pursuit of the game's large cash prizes. Outside investigators were called in and in July the contest winner was announced. Reportedly the winner had previously been in 6th place, indicating that the top 5 contestants may have been disqualified.
- A software problem contributed to a rail car fire in a major underground metro system in April of 2007 according to newspaper accounts. The software reportedly failed to perform as expected in detecting and preventing excess power usage in equipment on a new passenger rail car, resulting in overheating & fire in the rail car, and evacuation and shutdown of part of system.
- Tens of thousands of medical devices were recalled in March 2007 to correct a software bug. According to reports, software would not reliably indicate when available power to the device was too low.
- A Sept. 2006 news report indicated problems with software utilized in a state government's primary election, resulting in periodic unexpected rebooting of voter checkin machines, which were separate from the electronic voting machines, & resulted in confusion and delays at voting sites. Problem was reportedly due to insufficient testing.
- In Aug. 2006 a U.S. government student loan service erroneously made public the personal data of as many as 21,000 borrowers on it's web site, due to a software error. The bug was fixed & government department subsequently offered to arrange for free credit monitoring services for those affected.
- A software error reportedly resulted in overbilling of up to several thousand dollars to each of 11,000 customers of a major telecom company in June 2006. Software bug was reportedly fixed within days, but that correcting the billing errors would take much longer.
- News reports in May 2006 described a multi-million dollar lawsuit settlement paid by a healthcare software vendor to one of its customers. Reportedly, customer claimed problems with the software contracted for, including poor integration of software modules, & problems that resulted in missing or incorrect data used by medical personnel.
- In early 2006 problems in a government's financial monitoring software resulted in incorrect election candidate financial reports made available to public. The government's election finance reporting web site had to be shut down until software was repaired.
More to follow in a few days.
However, do you notice any patterns?
Why
do you believe systems continue to fail at alarming and disarming rates
(almost 1/3 are scratched before put into production)?
Why haven't all of the "breakthroughs" in software engineering, software development life cycle methodologies, project management standards, and testing regimens, among others, made a larger impact on project and system success over the past 20 years?
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