SOX and regulations to the software industry.

http://news.com.com/Automation+tools+to+get+boost+from+Sarbanes-Oxley/2100-1029_3-5582727.html?part=rss&tag=5575731

This regulations is not only good on its own, but it also keeps the economy and the market moving. Unfortunate are those companies that get double-dipped. These are the health-industry companies such as Pharmaceutical companies. They not have to comply to SOX but to HIPAA too. Ouch! Expect an increase in drug prices.

On a completely diffrent but sort of related topic is the software industry regulation debate (http://news.com.com/Time+to+regulate+the+software+industry/2100-7348_3-5579963.html). I can see that these sort of regulation may be applied to this industry too in the next at least 15-20 years when the collective minds of the industry don't see a lot of movements in terms of innovation.

I think that it would be beneficial if there were some guidelines in place in the form of may be Design Patterns. I think that there was an attempt to put in place a guidelines but it failed to materialize. It may be worth another try since the industry, as a whole, is in a different context (i.e. security etc.) and they might bite this time around.