Exactly if you spend 2 years and 10 million developing some new HR software that IBM spends 5million / year supporting for the next 18 years then that's a succe

Exactly if you spend 2 years and 10 million developing some new HR software that IBM spends 5million / year supporting for the next 18 years then that's a success even if you spent 90% in support in fact the better the project is the more likely for you to spend more money supporting it after the initial release. The only way to reduce that cost is to spend so long designing your software that it’s never actually released.