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An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics include improving information development process, using process modeling notation to map buying and selling of software solutions and the convergence and divergence in user interface design.

This paper extends Banerjee and Duflo's software offshoring model to an incentive-compatible framework and use it to restructure payment contracting in order to control offshoring risk more effectively. We propose a two-stage payments contracting with an embedded milestone-inspection trigger option. The vendor can only get the second-stage payment given her first-stage work satisfies certain criteria set by the client at the inspection point. We model such trigger option using an indicator function method and show that the embedded trigger option improves offshoring-risk mitigation and makes the vendor work harder. Furthermore, embedded trigger option imposes constraints on and thus improve on the client's behavior by changing the share ratio of the overrun for the client. Empirical evidence from the survey data of the China's vendors for the Japanese clients strongly supports main results of our model. Particularly, evidence supports that trigger option helps risk mitigation mainly by improving vendor's overrun reduction efficiency and is a bilateral incentive mechanism for both the client and the vendor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No abstract is available for this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we improve the software reliability by using COCOMO. As we know COCOMO (constructive cost model) is one of the widely used software cost estimation model. It is investigated as popular model for software cost estimation which depends on several variables like loc (line of code), effort estimation, development time or duration estimation, persons required. In this paper researcher investigates the rate of development time to improve the accuracy of cost estimation and reliability. By this reliability can also improve because at the development time we are going to include MTTR (mean time to repair). By adding MTTR value failure removes from the software and software become reliable. As we know software cost estimation is the process of predicting effort required to develop a software system. Some other models used to estimate cost are SLIM, COCOMO, FP (Function point) [3]. Software time estimation is the process of estimating the time required to develop the software. It supports the planning and tracking of software projects. The formula proposed in this paper calculates the accuracy of the software reliability. As the reliability improves it reduces the chance of failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ubiquity of electronic commerce has resulted in considerable interest in automating the mechanisms it employs. Ideally, we would like to only leave closing a deal to the human user, and have software negotiate price. This paper propose a negotiation strategy that focuses on 1) beginning the negotiation process at a realistic and competitive price, 2) encouraging the continuation of a round of negotiations once it has begun, and 3) keeping the computation and communication load low so that the bulk of marketplace resources are spent on the negotiation process itself. We offer comparison with respect to the negotiated price, negotiation time and communication overhead against Red Agent and show favorable results. This work also presents the design of a marketplace where agents would meet and negotiate through a protocol, read product information from a central ontology, and be able to fetch negotiated prices for a product from the central history database. The work therefore demonstrates feasibility for a negotiation support system comprising both the negotiation strategy and a negotiation infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the main requirements of the software subsystems management development. Standard IEC 61508-3 provides an overview at all stages of the life cycle of all security systems, including E/E/PE of a security system from initial concept, design, and implementation to operation maintenance. In this paper we analyzed set out requirements for the drafting of a software architecture that is consistent with the hardware architecture while meeting specified requirements for software safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research problem: Deciding whether to accept or reject contract clauses in software purchasing contracts is a complex communication-related task, which is likely faced daily by a multitude of software purchasing professionals in a variety of organizations. Research question: What are the effects of viewing contract clauses as video clips, compared to viewing clauses as text only, in terms of cognitive effort, communication ambiguity, and correctness in the acceptance or rejection of clauses in software purchasing contracts? Literature review: The literature on the Media Richness and Media Naturalness theories suggest that viewing contract clauses as video clips should reduce cognitive effort and communication ambiguity. However, while Media Richness theory suggests that correctness in the acceptance or rejection of clauses in software purchasing contracts should increase with the use of video clips, Media Naturalness theory suggests a neutral overall effect. Methodology: An experiment was conducted in which student participants were asked to either accept or reject 20 clauses from a software contract, placing themselves in the position of buyers. Of the 20 clauses, 6 were intentionally deceitful and potentially harmful to the buyer. Approximately half of the participants reviewed the contract clauses as web-based text, and the remaining as web-based video clips. Results and conclusions: Viewing contract clauses as video clips was associated with significantly less cognitive effort and less communication ambiguity than viewing the clauses as text only. Counterintuitively, increases in perceived cognitive effort and communication ambiguity were associated with more successful identification and rejection of deceitful contract clauses. The combination of these competing effects led to an overall neutral effect of the medium on the correctness in the acceptance or rejection of clauses. These findings are consistent with expectations based on Media Naturalness theory, particularly its compensatory adaptation proposition, and inconsistent with expectations based on Media Richness theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We consider a software vendor first selling a monopoly platform and then an application running on this platform. He may face competition by an entrant in the applications market. The platform monopolist can benefit from competition for three reasons. First, his profits from the platform increase. Second, competition serves as a credible commitment to lower prices for applications. Third, higher expected product variety may lead to higher demand for his application. Results carry over to non-software platforms and, partially, to upstream and downstream firms. The model also explains why Microsoft Office is priced significantly higher than Microsoft's operating system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software producers are making greater use of customer error reporting to discover defects and improve the quality of their products. We study how software development differences among producers (e.g., varying levels of process maturity) and software class and functionality differences (e.g., operating system versus productivity software) affect how these producers coordinate software release timing and pricing to optimally harness error reporting contributions from users. In settings where prices are fixed, we characterize the optimal release time and demonstrate why in some cases it can actually be preferable to delay release when customer error reporting rates increase. The manner in which a firm's optimal release time responds to increases in software functionality critically hinges on whether the added functionality enhances or dilutes user error reporting; in both cases, the effect of added functionality on release timing can go in either direction, depending on both firm and product market characteristics. For example, when processing costs are relatively large compared with goodwill costs, firms with lower process maturity will release earlier when per-module error reporting contributions become diluted and release later when these contributions become enhanced. We also examine how a firm adapts price with changes in error reporting levels and software functionality, and finally, we provide implications of how beta testing influences release timing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops an optimization model for pricing a monopolistic application software in the presence of piracy. The purpose is raising revenue produced by product’s sale with determining prices in a price skimming strategy and minimizing amount of piracy. The model is a multifunctional price skimming optimization with simplex method which accompanied by a deterministic method for calculating time intervals of each segment. A linear function is used to describe demand of each segment. In addition, a linear piracy function is proposed to make piracy a dynamic parameter. The model has the ability to apply penetration pricing and controlling market share. Rough estimates of Windows 7 sale’s parameters are used to apply in the model. Optimizing case of Windows 7 is resulted in 7.3 percent increase in revenue while value of net market share is virtually constant. Therefore, the developed model demonstrates its competence in optimizing revenue by determining prices with presence of piracy. Results of the research show that to tackle piracy, range of price skimming must be decreased in a way that highest price need to be intensely reduced while lowest one must be slightly reduced. The benefit of using this strategy, is incurring lowest revenue loss due to piracy. The Effects of an escalation in piracy on proposed optimization model include increase in number of sale, demand, selling portion, market share, and decrease in price, price difference between segments, and revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures constant-quality price change for prepackaged software in the US using detailed and comprehensive scanner data. Because there is a large sales surge over the winter-holiday, it is important to account for seasonal variation. Using a novel approach to constructing a seasonally-adjusted cost-of-living price index that explicitly accounts for consumer heterogeneity, I find that from 1997 to 2003 constant-quality software prices declined at an average 15.9% at an annual rate. As a point of comparison, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports average annual price declines of only 7.7% for prepackaged software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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As a new software licensing model, software-as-a-service (SaaS) is gaining tremendous popularity across the globe. In this study, we investigate the competition between a new entrant and an incumbent in an SaaS market, and derive the optimal market entry strategy for the new entrant. One interesting finding is that, when its product quality is significantly lower than that of the incumbent, the new entrant should adopt an instant-release strategy (i.e., releasing its product at the start of the planning horizon). If the initial quality gap of the two products is small, the new entrant is better off adopting a late-release strategy (i.e., deferring the release of the new product until its quality surpasses that of the existing product). We also find that instant-release and late-release are essentially low-quality/low-price and high-quality/high-price strategies, respectively. In addition, we explore the scenario where the two competing products are partially compatible, and characterize the impact of asymmetric incompatibility on the two vendors’ market strategies at equilibrium. We find that the new entrant’s zero-profit region expands as the level of incompatibility between the two competing products increases. Moreover, if the new entrant adopts the instant-release strategy, its profit decreases with the level of incompatibility. When the level of incompatibility is sufficiently high, the instant-release strategy may not be viable for the new entrant. On the other hand, if the new entrant adopts the late-release strategy, its profit increases with the level of incompatibility from its product to the incumbent’s, but decreases with the level of incompatibility in the other direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CoFI is the acronym of the Common Framework Initiative for Algebraic Specification and Development , which started in 1995. CoFI designed Casl , the Common Algebraic Specification Language . This article first summarises the origins of CoFI and the motivation for Casl . It then recalls some of the crucial contributions to CoFI made by Don Sannella, and concludes with an indication of the impact of CoFI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the commitment problem faced by a software vendor in ending critical support, in the presence of network security risks. When releasing a new version of a product, in order to drive up its demand, the vendor must cease supporting the old version. However, the vendor’s ability to leverage the increased demand can be limited because of a commitment problem. For, when the demand increases and the vendor accordingly sets a higher price, many consumers might opt not to upgrade, creating a situation where stopping security-related support simply becomes too risky. To avoid this risk and any subsequent losses in reputation, the vendor can renege on its earlier decision to stop support. We show that this commitment problem hurts the vendor’s profitability and find that the no-commitment equilibrium profit can surprisingly increase with the cost to extend support. Accordingly, we propose a commitment mechanism. Further, the consumer surplus may actually increase if the vendor desists from crossing the proverbial line in the sand and discontinues support as planned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software as a service (SaaS) has grown to be a significant segment of many software product markets. SaaS vendors, which charge customers based on use and continuously improve the quality of their products, have put competitive pressure on traditional perpetual software vendors, which charge a licensing fee and periodically upgrade the quality of their software. We develop an analytical model to study the competitive pricing strategies of an incumbent perpetual software vendor in the presence of a SaaS competitor. We find that,depending on both the SaaS quality improvement rate and the network effect, the perpetual software vendor adopts one of three different strategies: (1) an entry deterrence strategy, (2) a market segmentation strategy,or (3) a sequential dominance strategy. Surprisingly, we find that vendor competition does not always result in higher consumer surplus, and it might lead to a socially inefficient outcome under certain conditions. We further show insights into how the incumbent perpetual software vendor can defend its market position by providing incremental quality improvement through patching and/or by releasing consecutive versions with major quality upgrades. Finally, we extend our model to include the vendor’s quality improvement cost and users’ switching cost. These additional analyses help to identify the effect of different quality and cost factors on the market competitive equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is the result of the following investigation: "Design of a model to improve the cost estimation processes for software developing companies". It is presented a revision of the literature at an international level for identifying tendencies and methods for more accurate software cost estimations. Trough the Delphi predictive method, a group of experts in the field of software development in Barranquilla qualified and assessed from the probability of occurrence five realistic estimation scenarios. A completely random experiment was designed whose results point to two scenarios statistically similar in a cualitative manner, from that a three agents model was built: Metodology, capacity of the work team and technological products; each of those with three categories of fulfilment to achieve more precise estimations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]