Abstract
Whole life costing refers to the cost of ownership of a product from initial concept until eventual retirement with all cost categories taken into consideration. Traditionally software engineers have only been interested in the software development life cycle. This paper surveys research into whole life cost research in industry and finds that interest is greatest where the market is most competitive. In recent years the falling cost of computers has lead to increasing use of whole life cost in the marketing and advertising of IT products though there is very little published case study data available. Trends in other industries have shown that research will increase until more data is available and whole life costing is considered part of the normal design methodology. It will also be included in university computer science courses to train the professionals of the future in whole life cost techniques.
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Bradley, M., Dawson, R. Whole Life Cost: The Future Trend in Software Development. Software Quality Journal 8, 121–131 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008904926757
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008904926757