Metrics collected by Capers Jones in the US show that the percentage of software professionals working on the maintenance of existing applications (legacy) rather than the development of new applications rose from 52% to 73% between 1995 and 2000. Undoubtedly part of the increase is related to Y2K projects, but the numbers have not come down after 2000; instead, Capers Jones estimated that by 2010 79% of software professionals were focused on maintenance.
