Information Systems Evolution over the Last 15 Years

The information systems we see around us today are at first sight very different from those that were developed 15 years ago and more. On the other hand, it seems that we are still struggling with many of the same problems. To understand how we can evolve future ISs, we should have good understanding of the existing application portfolios. In this article we present selected data from survey investigations performed in 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2008 among Norwegian organizations on how they conduct information systems development and evolution. A major finding is that even if we witness large changes in the underlying implementation technology and approaches used, a number of aspects such as the overall percentage of time used for maintaining and evolving systems in production compared to time used for development is stable, and should be taken into account in the planning of information systems evolution for the future.