Conceding that the quality and cost of software continue to draw complaints, a group of software vendors and integrators Tuesday launched the Software Economics Council, which will address concerns regarding the efficiency, effectiveness, and value of software.

An offspring of the BPM Forum, a vendor group that promotes business-performance management, the Software Economics Council will issue white papers and hold seminars to share best practices in developing and promoting business software.

In an era when nearly all companies rely on software to run their operations, 31% of computer downtime can be attributed to application bugs, costing American organizations $60 billion a year, according to research from the Standish Group. Those are high numbers considering that 63% of respondents to a recent Standish survey say their companies rely on software to capture new business opportunities, and 61% use software for competitive differentiation.

Today's software industry is a huge ecosystem of players combining traditional software vendors, open-source developers, services providers, academics, and others, says Shirish Netke, chief strategy officer for Aztec Software and chairman of the new council's leadership committee.

"Historically, industry has been optimized for technology, but as the industry grows, it needs to be optimized for business to focus on the needs of CIOs and IT managers," Netke says, responding to a question about why CIOs should care about the new group.

Issues to be addressed by the council include development gaps between software design and delivery; how to best manage quality throughout software life cycles; building on the potential of open-source technology; and new strategies that let organizations elevate the value of software with today's licensed, open-source, and on-demand models. "The software ecosystem is in a state of constant churn," Netke says.

Among members of the council's leadership committee are executives from software vendors and integrators, large and small, including Adobe Systems, Borland, Deloitte Touche, EDS, IBM, Novell, Oracle, SAP, and Sybase.

Noticeably absent: Microsoft. Microsoft, a BPM Forum member, has yet to accept its invitation to join the new council. "We expect Microsoft to be joining some time in future," Netke says. "They were approached. It's nothing unusual for them to take some time to decide."