Software is a piece of capital. Take the benefits to business of a piece of software per unit time minus the costs of maintenance, operations and development ef

Software is a piece of capital. Take the benefits to business of a piece of software per unit time minus the costs of maintenance, operations and development effort then compare that to other opportunities to find a net present value. Lots of software I have worked on has probably been in "technical bankruptcy", but nobody sat down and figured that out (or it didn't matter because there was some persistent political reason for the system to exist and for it not to be able to be effectively designed and delivered).