Normative framework - Software product

In the field of software, and more generally in everything to do with information systems, the quest for quality is the concern of everyone involved. However, lack of time, the pace of technological change and constraints of all kinds seem to relegate quality aspirations to the status of unattainable objectives and myths.

And yet, quality simply boils down to customer satisfaction, and by extension, to meeting the requirements of all the partners involved in an operation or project (users, decision-makers, organizers, buyers, project managers, designers, developers, testers, operators, etc.).

Although intangible, software is no exception to this fundamental principle. In order to contribute to the improvement of software quality, international experts have agreed on a common basis that constitutes a standards platform.

These standards are the basis on which we build the quality of our software products, whether they are industrialized (software packages) or the result of specific customized developments.

Computing is the field of activity that concerns the processing of information by electronic equipment (computers). Information processing is based on two elements:

• hardware, electronic components, boards and peripherals ;

• software: a set of system or application instructions for automatic data acquisition, storage, transformation, transmission and retrieval.

Software is a rather unusual industrial product. It is materialized by code instructions, in the form of data implanted on a physical medium.

Like any industrial product, it must meet the needs formulated by customers/users who express their requirements. A product concept is born in the minds of engineers, who imagine and then design its functionalities. Developers then take it from the drawing board or mock-up stage to the manufactured product stage. This is the notion of life cycle (process).

The originality of software lies in the fact that it is an immaterial product. You could say it's a product of the virtual world, because it's invisible. Its effects, however, are very real.

However, in the context of supplier-customer-user exchanges, software is rarely delivered on its own. It is accompanied by documentation, training, support, maintenance and even operation, all of which have characteristics specific to the notion of service. The combination of product and service attributes leads to the preferred use of the term service provision.

The diversity of information technologies, the large number of related standards, and the wealth of feedback...