Mergers and acquisitions in the technology space—especially software technology—demand a thorough and meticulous review of the target company's software system architecture. Stakeholders require a rigorous evaluation, not just of the software overall but of the code it's composed of.
The prevalence of open source and its associated licenses in today's applications make this review and evaluation process a particularly daunting task. It's a labor-intensive effort, but failure to perform it adequately exposes organizations to inherited risks—and there are return on investment implications as well.
This paper lays out the clear business case for performing audits of software architecture (code review) in addition to design and functionality reviews. It offers best practices for buyers evaluating a target company's software systems, and details how Black Duck® Design Quality Audits can reduce the cost and effort of evaluating codebases, as well as reducing defect rates and minimizing roadblocks to deployment.