The 2018 Software Fail Watch report from Tricentis — an analysis of the software failures, defects, and vulnerabilities covered by news organizations from around the globe — investigated 606 failures that affected over 3.6 billion people and caused $1.7 trillion in lost revenue.
Highlights of this year’s Software Fail Watch include:
■ Software failures resulted in 268 years of downtime.
■ The number of reported failures was 10 percent higher in 2017 than in 2016.
■ Retail and consumer technology industries experienced the most software failures of any industry analyzed — making the news an average of 19 times per month.
■ Between July and August of 2017, the average total of software failure stories increased by 25% over previous months, and stayed high for the remainder of the year.
■ Consumer Tech is the industry with the highest level of media-driven brand damage per bug.
Wolfgang Platz, Tricentis founder and CPO, concluded: “Today, software plays a larger part in consumer and business interactions than ever before, and, yet, the number of news stories of reports of bugs being released into production only continues to grow. However, with the right strategies, approaches to automation, and better alignment with the business, I am confident that trend will change.”