Like to fail? Write custom code.

Alan Zeichick's blog describes a Managed Objects survey claiming that IT managers are more likely to blame software for IT downtime "if their organization relies heavily on home-grown applications," as opposed to off-the-shelf software.

From the survey:

Within organizations relying on more home-grown applications than off-the-shelf offerings, more than 80 percent of respondents blamed software as the primary cause of most outages.

Does it actually surprise anyone that home-grown applications are more likely to fail than packaged software?

What is suprising is the degree to which IT managers remain gung-ho on custom-made solutions. While I have no problem with custom applications in special circumstances, custom code is a relatively failure-prone and expensive way to go.

During an interview, Pascal Brosset, Senior Vice President of Market Strategy for SAP, commented that SAP customers should deploy customized code "over my dead body." Guess he feels rather strongly about this issue.