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The article discusses challenges presented when computer software manufacturers attempt to broaden the scope of software product lines. Since software product lines are such an effective tool for cutting costs and improving industrial efficiency, many companies are stretching the scope of their product families far beyond their initial design. The author identifies the three main trends driving the embedded systems industry (convergence, end-to-end functionality, and software-engineering) and details strategies for companies that are expanding product lines.

The article presents information the framework integration problem, causes and solutions. More recently, it's become clear that application development is often based on multiple frameworks that have to be integrated with one another, as well as with class libraries and with existing legacy components, to fulfill application requirements. But this integration process can lead to serious integration problems, since a framework is generally designed under the assumption that it is fully in control of the event loop. Though familiar with the most common problems and their causes, OO software developers struggle with solutions plagued by a lack of framework standards and development guidelines. The article provides six common problems that application and framework developers encounter when integrating two or more frameworks. Four of them are related to graphical design, the two are related to detailed design and can result from any of the problems at the architectural design level. The article also provides a number of approaches to overcome these problems.