Lack of Support

While particpating on comp.soft.testing forum, someone pointed out something while true it is disconcerting: most software companies treat Quality as a support role.

According to the NIST testing/debugging represents 80% of the average software project. Two points to note: first point, better testing means less debugging. This figure says more about testing than debugging. Second, how come a "support" activity can represent such a big share of any project?

Going back to the Microsoft dilemma, but this applies to any other software company: Windows XP had the same quality problems that Vista is experiencing. It required two service packs that were releases by themselves.

So five years later, a bigger team, outsourcing, and new testing technology, yields another quality quagmire. And this is a company that does not seem to treat quality as a support role.

So imagine that Toyota had such a record and had the quality control done by a third company?