Marketplace Issues in Software Planning and Design.

The most recognized return-on-investment (ROI) drivers include the value to users; the cost of development, maintenance, upgrades, and customer support; and the risks of project failure, budget overrun, and revenue shortfall. This article focuses on ROl issues related to positioning software in the marketplaces. Rather than discuss contracted software development for specific customers or open-source software efforts, the author emphasizes the uncertainties and strategic issues that suppliers encounter in selling or licensing software in the general marketplace. These issues are categorized by the standard ROI measures of revenue, cost, and risk. Revenue is affected by many factors, including pricing strategies and unit sales. All these factors strongly depend on design decisions affecting customer-perceived value and customer-incurred costs, as well as the status of competition. Increasing value and satisfaction for customers is critical for remaining competitive but often isn't sufficient to take market share away from an established competitor. Encouraging complementary solutions from other vendors increases value, although with little differentiation from competitors who can exploit the same complements. INSET: Further Reading..