Nope – I’m not referring to an HTTP 404 error. I’m talking about Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Section 404. If you are a software developer and don’t know what SOX is, it’s the law enacted after all the corporate accounting scandals in the early 2000’s that was intended to increase the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosure. There are many opinions on SOX, including the widely held opinion among the VC community that SOX has been instrumental in discouraging companies from going public. Love or hate it, we’ve all got to live with it.
Niel Robertson – the CTO of Newmerix – has written a good overview article on SOX 404 and what it means to the IT organization and the software developer. Distilling the government regulations and accounting stuff into a short article that is relevant and useful is non-trivial – Niel did a nice job of it. If you are involved in creating, managing, or deploying software that impacts financial systems, it’s worth a read.