As a result, the user is invariably required to bear the cost for the supplier to port software as and when it is decided that it makes strategic sense, or it is imperative, to do so. This is caused because the planning and procedures required to ensure that the software production function accounts for portability and builds the requirement into every project are rarely in place. The need for better practices to ensure software portability continues to grow. Once the problem was confined to portability between UNIX to UNIX and UNIX to mainframe systems. This, however, is no longer the case as other operating systems and technologies such as NT and Java become more widespread.
Software portability needs to be an integral part of software development.
It must be understood, planned for and included in the overall software management process. For example, companies should be able to easily assess both new and existing applications for their portability. They would then be better able to plan for future porting projects and implement procedures that are best able to proactively deliver portable applications on an ongoing process rather than addressing portability problems reactively. Software portability will remain an unpredictable expense. The Open Portability service from The Open Group provides an innovative approach to assessing portability by combining an evaluation of software code with an analysis of the quality processes involved in producing it.