3. Software obsolescence

The news often highlights incidents linked to the occurrence and effects of obsolescence on electronic components. Moreover, it is in the industrial electronics and defense communities that obsolescence issues are most closely studied . The methodologies, databases and tools available in the field of obsolescence management today focus almost exclusively on the hardware life cycle.

However, in most complex systems, software lifecycle costs (re-design, re-hosting and re-qualification) contribute as much if not more to total lifecycle costs than hardware; and both hardware...