Abstract Ever since the early 90¡¦s the global software market has been growing at a rapid speed, even faster than that of the hardware market. Along with the development of Internet and e-commerce, the demands for software have been continuously on the rise. The Taiwan software industry has to improve the quality of its software products in order to compete in the international IT arena. The present best option is for the Taiwanese software firms to achieve the Software Engineering Institute¡¦s Capability Maturity Model certification. This study shows that the obstacles Taiwanese software firms in adopting Capability Maturity Model can be categorized into three main factors: human resources, environment, and technology. Therefore, the software industry must start solving these issues to improve quality and Subsequently attain international standard.