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Piracy is commonly believed to be detrimental to legal suppliers, so strong enforcement against piracy is expected. However, in practice, some companies do not deter piracy actively which seems counterintuitive. To explore the rationale behind the uncommon phenomenon, this paper explores the piracy issue from the entry deterrence perspective. In particular, we study an incumbent’s entry deterrence strategy using piracy when facing a potential entrant who offers similar products in the market. The incumbent decides whether to deter the piracy, and the entrant chooses whether to enter the market by anticipating the competition in the potential market and the entry cost. By analyzing the strategies of both the incumbent and the entrant, we find that deterring piracy is not always a good strategy since piracy could be used as a deterring strategy on the entrant, which explains the practices in many companies. Specifically, we find that when the entry cost is moderate, the incumbent accommodates piracy when the entrant is more of a threat, and piracy serves as a partner of the incumbent to prevent the entry of a powerful entrant. This conclusion also holds when considering the entry deterrence cost, network effect and the entrant is a high end substitute.

The competition in the software market demands that the time required for any software product to reach the market be reduced if the product is to survive competition from other developers. The pursuit of this goal has led to the adoption of agile software development methodologies. While other agile methodologies provide guidelines as to the software engineering (SE) practices to be used during the development lifecycle, Scrum does not. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to identify the usage and level of importance of software engineering practices in the Scrum development environment; and second, to investigate how Scrum teams adopt an appropriate set of SE techniques and whether a hybrid Scrum/Extreme Programming (XP) methodology is an appropriate approach to take. This research was conducted by examining sample data from five organizations using the Scrum methodology. The sample included a range of industries including communications and embedded systems, financial asset management, software development houses and consulting firms in South Africa. The study employed a mixed method approach. A key finding was that, regardless of the fact that Scrum does not explicitly recommend engineering practices, there was extensive use of these practices by all of the participating organizations. The study also found that the lack of software engineering practices in Scrum does not constitute a barrier to a successful adoption of Scrum, provided the 'inspect and adapt' principle inherent in Scrum is properly followed. The study discusses the findings, explains the implications and suggests future research.

Цель: статья посвящена вопросу модернизации курьерской службы путем разработки и внедрения регламентирующей методики распределения онлайн-заказов и разработке специальной системы поддержки принятия решений (СППР) для автоматизации этого процесса. Обсуждение: проанализировав рынок программных продуктов для автоматизации курьерской службы, авторами выявлен ряд их недостатков, среди которых можно выделить отсутствие вариантов выбора вида транспорта курьера при расчете его маршрута движения, а также отсутствие возможности настраивать рабочий график курьера с учетом его предпочтений. Указанные недостатки не позволяют гибко и эффективно организовать работу курьерской службы. Результаты: авторами предложены регламентирующая методика распределения онлайн-заказов по курьерам с учетом указанных выше недостатков, а также разработана архитектура СППР для ее автоматизации. Результаты апробации подтвердили возможность широкого практического использования разработанных методики и СППР.

This paper highlights the influence of knowledge on the customer relationship as the fourth core component of the CRM components which are technology, people and business processes. The fourth component emerges as a result of the advancement in technology, telecommunications, and the excess in customer information in the era of information. Moreover, this paper highlights the new fifth type of CRM namely “Showroom CRM”. Besides, the other CRM types are strategic CRM, Operational CRM, Analytical CRM and Collaborative CRM. The fifth type is a comprehensive business framework which includes the structure of the other types of CRM. Moreover, the researcher surveyed the web and listed a 250 CRM system packages and programs available in the software market. The summary and classification of the 250 CRM system is given in table (1) of appendix A of the study.

Since the education sector is associated with highly dynamic business environments which are controlled and maintained by information systems, recent technological advancements and the increasing pace of adopting artificial intelligence (AI) technologies constitute a need to identify and analyze the issues regarding their implementation in education sector. However, a study of the contemporary literature reveled that relatively little research has been undertaken in this area. To fill this void, we have identified the benefits and challenges of implementing artificial intelligence in the education sector, preceded by a short discussion on the concepts of AI and its evolution over time. Moreover, we have also reviewed modern AI technologies for learners and educators, currently available on the software market, evaluating their usefulness. Last but not least, we have developed a strategy implementation model, described by a five-stage, generic process, along with the corresponding configuration guide. To verify and validate their design, we separately developed three implementation strategies for three different higher education organizations. We believe that the obtained results will contribute to better understanding the specificities of AI systems, services and tools, and afterwards pave a smooth way in their implementation.

The increase of consumption is an important motivation for the reuse of either physical or virtual products. As the software market has risen, software reuse has become a practice with favourable effects for software development companies and their clients. The most important benefits are increased productivity, reduced costs, better and easier maintenance, decreased development lead times and the improved quality of software products. Successful reuse depends on several technical and non-technical factors. The ecological impact of software is an important non-technical factor of software reuse that needs to be analysed in the context of the rapid evolution of optimization techniques. The main goal of this study is to identify ecological perspectives on software reuse. These will complete the framework of software reuse together with other technical factors, such as compatibility, and non-technical factors, such as economic and ethical implications.

A number of studies on the successes and failures of business process management (BPM) have been conducted with the aim of identifying BPM adoption success factors. The complex and comprehensive nature of BPM has resulted in the lack of a generally accepted framework for successful BPM adoption. One general means of ensuring BPM success is through the adoption of business process management software (BPMS). The fact that there is currently no consensus as to a generally accepted definition of BPM software makes it difficult to define the criteria for its selection. There are several reasons for this: (i) the size and complexity of the field, (ii) determining business needs is not always straightforward, and (iii) the BPM software market is complex and its features and capabilities vary greatly across vendors. In this article, we examine the contextual and technical perspectives of BPMS adoption and related critical success factors (CSF). The goal of this study was to propose BPMS selection guidelines with regard to the organizational, environmental and technological CSFs of BPMS adoption, to support decision makers in selecting the right BPMS. To accomplish this, we applied a multiple- case study approach and carried out a set of interviews in companies that have fully or partly adopted BPMS. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather quantitative data for those topics that can be evaluated numerically, and qualitative contextual (organizational and environmental) CSFs relevant for BPMS adoption success.

The article investigates the Ukrainian segment of the software market for reporting. We have performed the analysis of the most popular programs («Art-Zvit Plus», «М.E.Doc», «Sonata», «iFin», «1C:Zvit», «SOTA», «TAXER», «EDVZ») and describe their functional possibilities so as compare them. This allowed us to determine the software products that best meet the needs of users in relation to the formation and reporting. The purpose of the study is the analysis of software for the reporting, identifying their main advantages and disadvantages. The influence of cloud-technologies on the organization of accounting, specifically organization of reporting is revealed. Prospects for further research in this direction are the choices of software for report preparation and reporting.

The implementation of sanctions to a producer, a number of franchisers, dealers and distributers of the most popular programme product called «1С: Accounting» caused the problem of software choice for conducting accounting for a great number of entities. The aim of the article is to analyze the possibilities of programme products (for conducting accounting) presented at the Ukrainian market, to determine the possibilities of their use when providing services on accounting outsourcing. The article deals with the Ukrainian segment of software market for conducting accounting. The paper analyzes the most popular programmes («1С: Accounting for Ukraine»; «Sail-Accounting»; «Clerk»; «SAP»; «IT-Enterprise: Accounting»; «ІС-PRO»), describes their functional possibilities, and compares them. This allowed to determine the possibilities of application of above-mentioned programme products while providing the accounting outsourcing services. The paper describes the peculiarities and substantiates the safety against cyber-attacks of using «cloud» services for conducting accounting, in particular, in the course of outsourcing of the present process at the enterprise. The prospects for the further study in the current direction is to determine the peculiarities of accounting representation of the software, which is provided under the terms of «cloud» technologies.

We discuss the software patent should be granted or not. There exist two types of coping in the software market; reverse engineering and software duplication. Software patent can prevent both types of copies since a patent protects an invention. If the software is not protected by a patent, software producer cannot prevent reverse engineering. However, the producer can prevent the software duplication by a copyright. It is not clear the software patent is socially desirable when we consider these two types of coping. We obtain the following results. First, the number of copy users under the patent protection is greater than that under the copyright protection. Second, the government can increase social welfare by applying copyright protection when the new technology is sufficiently innovative.

Kakao is a fast growing software company focused on providing innovative smartphone applications. The company is rooted in the Korean mobile communication market where customer demands for high speed connectivity have been growing sharply. Kakao maintains the top position in the category of mobile communication utility tool for the last three years and competes successfully with other new comers. However, the company faces tremendous external threat from traditional smartphone carriers, SK Telecom, KT and LG U+. Those telecommunication conglomerates view the rapid growth of Kakao as a dangerous possibility that may deprive them of revenue streams from their traditional cash cows of texting and voice calling. Moreover, traditional software champions, Naver and Daum, steadily expand their market shares by differentiating themselves. Those competitors have strong brand assets, innovation capabilities and market sensitivity. After three years in the mobile software market, Kakao faces constraints to its growth potential. Kakao tries to overcome the situation by positioning itself as a new mobile platform leader that connects potential customers and game publishers. In addition, the company wants to speed up innovation for sustaining its reputation through a financial transfusion from external investors. Instead of choosing an easier option of being merged or acquired, the company clearly sets its course to fight against external challenges. How can Kakao overcome the difficulty and sustain growth? What kind of strategic choices can be executable?

The preparation and implementation of a real estate development project requires the adoption of a large number of diverse management decisions. For the preparation of decisions often attract experts. The opinions of many experts sometimes do not agree with each other and even are mutually exclusive. For their analysis using computer-based decision support systems (DSS). The article provides an analysis of several DSS, their applicability for the preparation of the project of real estate development. The results of the comparative experiment are also presented - the advantages and disadvantages of direct and indirect discussion of the project. It is revealed that the mediated written discussion with the use of information and communication technologies has advantages over direct discussion. It has been established that the quality of the discussion improves when there is a specially trained moderator who controls the process. Analysis of the features of the implementation of real estate development projects showed that there are no group decision support systems on the software market that can meet all the requirements necessary for the effective preparation and implementation of a real estate development project.

In highly competitive technology markets, such as the market in which Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) service providers do business, it has become of fundamental importance to understand the factors that create competitive advantages. This paper presents the support from the theoretical frameworks offered by the Resource-based View (RBV) and the Market-based View (MBV) to attempt to explain the competitive advantage held by Totvs Curitiba, a franchise of Totvs, which in turn is a Brazilian company that is a market leader in ERP service provision. In methodological terms, this is a Case Study for which data was collected during interviews and by observation and review of secondary documentary sources. The results suggest that the franchise’s market-leading position was built on a relationship, which is identifiable in the results of this study, between the strategies adopted, resources controlled and competences developed.

Firms use social media marketing to promote products and collect consumer feedback for the product development process. Their practice of investing in retailer-hosted Word-of-Mouth (internal WOM) is supported by a positive feedback mechanism between internal WOM and retail sales. Internal WOM is a sales influencer: consumers can get informed about a product by a large volume of internal WOM. It is also a sales outcome: greater past sales lead to more WOM. Beyond internal WOM, consumers are shown to search widely for product information on third-party websites. Consequently, many firms also start to invest in content on third-party websites. However, little is known regarding the interplay between internal WOM and the contents of third-party websites, which have both been invested in by firms in recent years. In the context of the online software market, this study examines how WOM hosted by third-party websites (external WOM) and third-party free sampling influence the feedback mechanism between internal WOM and retail sales. Using data from Download.com and Amazon.com , we analyze the impact via a simultaneous equation model in a Bayesian hierarchical framework. We find that external WOM and third-party free sampling moderate the sales-outcome role of internal WOM in different ways. Receiving external user reviews amplifies the impact of past sales on volume of internal WOM; whereas third-party free sampling weakens the impact of past sales on internal WOM. Moreover, this impact of external WOM and third-party free sampling on the sales-outcome role of internal WOM is much more significant than their impact on the sales-influencer role of internal WOM.

We model a market, such as an online software market, in which an intermediary connects sellers and buyers by displaying sellers' products. With two vertically-differentiated products, an intermediary can place either: (1) one product, not necessarily the better one, on the first page, and the other hidden on the second page; or (2) both products on the first page. We show that it can be optimal for the intermediary to obfuscate a product---possibly the better one---since this weakens price competition and allows the sellers to extract a greater surplus from buyers; however, it is not socially optimal. The choice of which one to obfuscate depends on the distribution of search costs.

Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future."- Niels Bohr Since the early days of mankind, man has always been fascinated by the idea of knowing future. Data is being captured at a rate never before seen in history. The retailer's goal is to translate that data into bottom line profits & Predictive analytics makes that possible. The data one captures about customers, or even consumers who interact with retail operation and don't make a purchase, is more revealing than one can think of. Customer data can provide insights on everything from large and systemic patterns of global markets, workflows, national infrastructures, and natural systems to the location, temperature, security, and condition of every item in supply chain. Predictive analytics offers access to reliable, timely information; understand customers, spot trends that drive better decisions to stay ahead in a competitive marketplace. Managers have many different decisions to make monthly, weekly, daily, sometimes even hourly. In 2012, worldwide Business Analytics software market grew 8.7% year over year with revenues reaching $34.9 billion (1) (2) and is also expecting accelerated growth which will be fueled by the quest to harness the power of big data. This paper gives Comparative Study of some of the Time Series Analytic Techniques which are the foundation blocks of

Recent proliferation of mobile market has swiftly increased the competition in mobile software market, new technology and new devices are emerging at phenomenal speed. As the number of mobile applications is increasing at daily rate, quality is becoming major issue. So mobile software organization need some quality model as guideline to improve and maintain quality of application under development. Mobile application mainly depends on user response and user acceptance so they need maintainability, usability, suitability etc. This research paper presents mobile application quality model focusing on key quality characteristics mainly extracted from ISO 9126 quality model, which effect quality of mobile applications. Furthermore some responsibilities of QA team in mobile application development are also discussed and lastly focused on the issue of „tracking the quality of mobile applications after deployment‟.

This paper studies the impact of software piracy in a two-sided-market setting. Software platforms attract developers and users to maximize their profits. The equilibrium price structure is affected by piracy: license fees to developers are higher with more software protection but the impact on user prices is ambiguous. A conflict between platforms and software developers over software protection may arise: whereas one side benefits from better protection, the other party loses out. Under platform compatibility, this conflict is no longer present.

Trabalho enviado em 14 de agosto de 2015. Aceito em 12 de outubro de 2015. DOI: 10.12957/rqi.2016.18174 Resumo A tarefa de investigar a escolha por parte de governos em adotar softwares livres demanda uma analise profunda sobre o cenario do mercado de programas de computador. Atraves de um metodo de analise empirica e qualitativa, visa-se aprofundar na compreensao dos caracteres pelos quais se constitui o setor de softwares e elencar os principais problemas a serem enfrentados. O plano teorico adotado e o da luta pelo reconhecimento e o do viver plenamente o direito. A principal constatacao e de que a adocao do modelo de open source pelo Governo Federal nao e capaz de figurar como fator transformador da realidade do mercado, monopolizada pelas estruturas dos softwares de codigo-fonte fechados. Palavras-chave: Luta por reconhecimento. Vivendo plenamente a lei. Propriedade Intelectual. Softwares Livres. Codigo-fonte Abstract Investigating the government’s choice for promoting open source software initiatives is a complex task that demands a deeper look at the software market situation. Through an analytical and empirical approach, this research aims to further understanding of the elements that make up the software market and classify the major problems present in this realm. The theoretical framework applied is the theories of the struggle for recognition and living lawfully. The underpinning of this research is that the adoption of open source software by the Brazilian Government has not changed the essential character of the market, as the structures that could transform the nature of this scenario are still monopolized by proprietary software companies. Keywords : Struggle for recognition. Living lawfully. Intellectual Property. Open Source Software. Source Code.

The intended purpose of a device is a key reference when regulators decide whether or not to regulate it as a medical device. However, when coming into consumer health domain, it is sometimes difficult to decide whether a device (or system) has a general purpose or not. The authors discussed the regulatory policy around health device connectivity, operating system and software market, and proposed to regulate them with enough granularity.

VPN can give safety in connection in Timbuc-too, by corporation`s basis communication means today that transfer user support in Timbuc-too is required compulsorily, VPN is activated. This research wishes to investigate base technology of VPN software field and investigate VPN software market trend and standard and develop estimation model of VPN software. For this special quality of VPN software investigation / analyze and investigate or analyze market trend and standard this to VPN software to base deduction of estimation item and estimation model develop.

This study specifically focuses on the software market and tries to identify the sources that intensify equity investments through merger and acquisition (M&A) paths. Increasing the firm size and accessing new growth opportunities is particularly significant in the software industry. Consistent with this view, this work focuses on the cross-border strategies that could be used to manage value creation processes. The results found are based on the fact that diversification of the geographic market (acquiring cross-border technology) is relevant to the positive answers given by the stock markets. Moreover, the age of the target firm strongly influences M&A decisions and the younger the target firm is, the higher the possibility of creating value, but this variable increases uncertainty in the evaluation of the target firm, decreasing the purchase offers. The complementary nature between the acquiring and the target firm and the size of the investing firm influence market return and appear to be linked. These results provide empirical evidence on the use of financial measures to determine the goodness of an acquisition but, above all, they provide a new reading of the evaluation of the complementary nature between the buyer and the target firm.

We adopted a game-theoretic approach to studying competition in the software market that is dependent on the network effect, i.e., where the success of the software product is mainly affected by the size of its installed base. The primary goals of our research were: to provide insights into competition between a new entrant with a significant presence in foreign countries and a home-grown incumbent, and to offer evidence in support to the theory of competition in the software market. Our analysis of word-processing software competition in South Korea between 1997 and 2003 suggested that there are several factors that caused the new entrant [Microsoft in this case], to overtake the native incumbent as the market leader. The findings are integrated into a discussion of the managerial implications.

Creating information systems is complicated and involves finding solutions for analytic-design problems and for that reason using new programming languages and CASE tools is necessary. The author tries to evaluate two items chosen from a group of many tools available on the software market. For that reason the author pointed out few criteria connected to quality and quantity parameters. The specific character of the product influences the decision about the type of tool made by analytic-design team. ENTERPRISE ARCHITECT A MAGICDRAW UML – POROWNANIE MOŻLIWOŚCI NARZĘDZI CASE

This paper shows that a selective piracy-detection strategy for the monopolist is rational in a reproducible software market. Different detection strategies and the corresponding price/penalty strategies adopted by the monopolist, with the considerations of detection costs and network externality, are demonstrated in a simplified two-period model. Under some specific circumstances, the software monopolist could gain a higher profit if not detecting piracy (closing one eye) at the beginning but detecting it (opening the other eye) later. In short, detection strategies would be time-inconsistent. Moreover, from the social planner’s perspective, the monopolist’s best detection strategy is not always socially optimal; that is, not-enforcing copyright protection may be privately and socially beneficial.

Darbe modeliuojama programinės įrangos rinka. Analizuojamos šio modelio nulemtos nuosavybinės programinės įrangos rinkos tendencijos, globali įtaka ekonomikai bei rinkos vystymosi scenarijai. Įrodoma, kad rinkos koncentracija yra neišvengiamas tokio modelio scenarijų rezultatas. Aptariamas aprašytų scenarijų keliamų problemų sprendimas. Palyginami du sprendimų tipai: kiekybinis sprendimas – teisinis ekonominis reguliavimas, ir kokybinis sprendimas – perėjimas prie laisvosiosprograminės įrangos. Analizuojami abiejų tipų sprendimų poveikiai sistemai. Pagrindžiama išvada, kad sistema pajėgi sugerti pirmojo tipo sprendimus, o antrojo tipo sprendimai gali iš esmės pakeisti situaciją.Software competition system dynamics modelMykolas Okulič-Kazarinas Summary In article the system dynamics model of competition in the proprietary software market is presented, trends of this market and the influence of these trends to the global economy are analysed, scenario’s of behaviour of system according to presented model are described, problem of concentration of capital because of functioning of proprietary software system is identified. Model shows how the software market goes to economically not reasonable distribution of capital. Current known possible solutions of problems are looked round. Two types of solution are presented and analysed: (1) quantitative solution, on egg. special law obligating using of standards and (2) qualitative solution, egg. promotion of using of free software.The main conclusion is that quantitative solution could not solve the global problem. Efficiency of solution of using of free software was proved.

This work proposes a simple model to simulate the dynamics of the market related to COTS software products, when there are no new entrants. The model takes in explicit account the interactions between products. The model uses a set of random variables, as the initial condition, to simulate the time evolution. The results of the simulations predict the emergence of monopolies, when the interactions between products are significant, and of open markets, when they are limited. The model is validated, by comparing the results of the simulation with the well established observations related to software markets and by comparing the resulting distribution of COTS software products with real data on the software market, which was provided by PC Data Inc.

We develop a general equilibrium model to study the implications of a legal environment on the organization of software production. We show that contract enforcement determines the organizational mode (i.e., in-house versus outsourcing) of customized software development while copyright protection affects both packaged software as well as customized software development. We obtain some testable results: when copyright protection is weak, only customized software will be developed; when copyright protection is strong, both customized software and packaged software will be developed; environment changes in one software market affect the equilibrium in the other software market.

As the ERP software market has been growing at a very fast pace over the last several years and has been predicted to keep growing rapidly, but at the same time Implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software in a global environment faces a several key challenges. E.g. business processes are to be reengineered to align with the ERP software best practices, technical architecture and infrastructure needs to be in place globally as per specifications of the packaged software, integration of extended enterprise services in terms of ERP, CRM, SCM, Business intelligence systems, etc., are some of key challenges which an organizations face to implement such global solutions. Besides all these, critical success factors like users involvement, time and budget constraints, vendor performance, etc. are other side of implementation process. In this paper, authors had reviewed key technical and implementation issues faced in ERP implementation, how to resolve them and .finally a framework is proposed for overall ERP system implementation and design of program management, which contributes to the success of such complex and global solutions This framework is designed to facilitate small and medium level companies to implement ERP system of there own.

The ideas of Darwinian evolution can illuminate the niches in which systems can flourish in today's tumultuous IT environment---and help identify the inevitable evolutionary changes.

Entering the 21st century, information and communication technolou (ICT) has become an un-separated part in daily human activities. ICT business has become the means in creating wealth and welfare for those commanding this technology. Indonesia with her abundance of people could have compete and create a mass of entrepreneurs in the ICT business. Lack of human development and other causes have brought Indonesia to become merely just user and buyer in the thriving business. The Government of Indonesia has long realized this and has made some efforts in closing the gap. President Yudhoyono 's visit the USA in 2005 has brought an early discussion whether Microsoft will open its research centre in Indonesia. The discussion arouse to a level that in the future Indonesia would able to export its software to the world market. There are steps to be taken and resources to be prepared. There are certain constrains for Indonesia to rise as the world software powerhouse in the future, including the ever changing environment of the software market, as some regard as maelstrom effect. This paper describes the steps should be taken to establish the Microsoft Research Centre in Indonesia and the link to make Indonesia as a world software exporter.

This paper set out to provide a skeptical perspective to the view that IT has the potential to bring people into the global community. While not doubting the merits of IT’s capabilities it proposed that such claims be qualified in view of disparities in the distribution of wealth between nations and between peoples. It focused attention on the plight of students at the University of Fort Hare, in the Eastern Cape, which is the poorest of South Africa’s nine provinces. It argued instead that IT has the likelihood of accentuating instead of bridging existing inequalities in wealth between countries and between peoples. It contended that not‘everybody’ is predisposed to becoming a role player in the global agenda given that access to IT and online facilities is stratified by income. This, the paper posited, is most likely to exacerbate the "global digital divide"—the growing disparity in wealth between countries of the North and the South, and between peoples, the information "haves" and "have-nots". The U.S.’s 1999 expenditure on IT, which stood at $762 as opposed to South Africa’s expenditure in the same year, which was $10.6, illustrates the "divide". But while on the surface the University of Fort Hare’s situation seemed very gloomy, the paper outlined positive, but modest initiatives not only to provide access to IT and online facilities, but also to quip staff and students with requisite skills to enable them to be role players in the global agenda.

In business science, the studied objects are often groups of partners rather than independent firms. Extending classical segmentation to these polyads raises conceptual problems, principally: defining what should be consid- ered as common or specific at the partners' and at the segment levels. The general approaches consist either in merging partners characteristics and performances into a single macro-object, thus loosing their specific contributions to each partner's performance, or in modelling partners' performance as if their models were inde- pendent. As a step to understanding, how partnership influences firms' perform- ance, the dyadic (i.e. two partners') case is studied. First, some theoretical issues concerning the degrees of individual and contributive interest in a dyadic popula- tion are discussed. Next, partnership's conceptualisation is based upon two models for each firm: a "self-model" that reflects how the firm's characteristics explain its own performance, and a "contributive-model" model that reflects how these characteristics influence the partner's performance. This allows definition of three relationship modes: merging, teaming and sharing. Subsequently, dyad segmenta- tion strategies are discussed according to their capacity to reflect the modes of part- nership and a dyadic clusterwise regression method, based on a genetic algorithm, is presented. Finally, the method is illustrated empirically using actual data of busi- ness partners in the software market.

Ready or not, digital imaging in the microscope lab Is here to stay. While I am one of those fogies who insist that digital images are nowhere near as good as photographic prints, I've also bowed to the inevitable, and am beginning to find ways to assist the clients in our multi-user facility with their digital imaging needs, We can acquire digital images from our FESEM, from our light microscope with a CCD, and from a flatbed scanner. Clients use their images for image analysis, transport to others scientists via the Internet or World Wide Web, for reports, slides, overhead transparencies, and publication, Generally, these images need to be manipulated for use, just as one would manipulate a photographic print to correct any deficiencies in exposure or area of view. Adobe PhotoShop is the software of choice for image adjustment, accounting for more than 80% of the digital image-editing software market.

Theory suggests that the role of network externalities is critical to transforming new businesses from market entrant to market leadership positions. However, there have been relatively few empirical studies of network externalities in E-commerce contexts. Building on the theory of networks and technology standards, this paper develops and tests three propositions related to network effects and the provision of free goods in Web server markets. Hedonic pricing models estimated on the basis of comprehensive time-series data are used to examine the factors that determine price and to gauge the impact of network effects and free goods. The market for Windows Web servers reflects the influence of network externalities even after the entry of a viable free-market alternative. The UNIX market, dominated by open-source and other free software products through the course of this study, does not exhibit network effects. The research reported here advances the theoretical literature by testing new propositions in a new and unstudied context. Its empirical findings contribute to an understanding of the dynamics of the Web's software market and, thus, of future competition in E-commerce markets.

Constraint logic programming CLP is a relatively new programming paradigm. During its 10 years of existence the theory of CLP has been increasingly understood and the two differ ent approaches domain technology and incremental linear solving have been implemented in various CLP systems. Meanwhile the commercial attractivity of CLP has been growing. Since 1989 a couple of commercial CLP systems appeared on the software market and have been successfully used in many real life applications. The power of CLP stems from its ability to solve hard combinatorial problems such as planning scheduling resource allocation and many others. How CLP originated from two declarative paradigms - constraint solving and logic programming - is informally explained and the relationship between the different ap proaches in CLP is presented. The main part of the article presents a real life scheduling appli cation for the largest Slovak metallurgy company using the CLP system ECL PS.

In 1990, Cusumano and Kemerer examined a statistically comparable sample of Japanese and American software development projects to assess whether significant differences could be identified in software development practices that would help to explain American dominance of the software market. This study extends the work of Cusumano and Kemerer by examining software development practices for knowledge-based systems and by including European projects as well as those from Japan, and the United States. The findings of our study confirm what Cusumano and Kemerer found and also confirm a study of quality assurance technology in Japan done by Kishida,Teramoto, Torii, Urano (1987). That is, there is no significant difference in Japanese, American and European software development practices, choice of software tools or level of project complexity. We will discuss U.S. dominance of the software market (U.S. suppliers hold more than 74% of world market share despite the fact that foreign demand now accounts for over 55% of all software revenue. U.S. Department of Commerce, 1994, pg. 27-5)1 and suggest that the concept of American dominance is more likely to be explained by economic and cultural factors than by differences in software development practices or access to the latest technology.

The 1990s has already seen enormous change to the computer industry in Brazil. But the greatest change of all is expected in the area of software. By the end of 2000, Brazil is out to capture 1 percent of a US $ 200 billion international software market, according to the federal Govemment's National Program of Software for Export, or Softex 2000. For Brazil, this could mean $2 billion in revenues from sales of application programs, programming tools, and multimedia entertainment and educational systems on CD-ROMs. So far, the local industry has done well. Exports in 1995 reached $100 million, about half going to the United States, again according to Softex. This occurred even though most of the Softex-supported companies still have to make their mark overseas. In 1994, Brazilian companies sold a total of $1.1 billion worth of software, which puts the industry on a par with that of India's far better known software industry, though exports account for about half of India's revenues. Brazil's software industry grew by about 25 percent over the year before. Revenues from information technology hardware, software, and services in 1994 were around 2 percent of Brazil's gross domestic product of about $552 billion.

This paper is an empirical study of the value of four file compatibility standards for transferring data in the personal computer software market. The results are that only the LOTUS file compatibility standard is significant in explaining price variations and it is significant in both the spreadsheet and database management system markets. This supports the hypothesis that the personal computer software market exhibits complementary network externalities. Copyright 1995 by MIT Press.

Resumo Atraves de uma analise da evolucao do mercado de softwares, ate a criacao do software livre, o objetivo deste artigo foi revisar algumas das interpretacoes existentes na literatura sobre a tematica da producao de software livre na economia contemporânea. Ao estabelecer uma conexao entre a diferenciacao do setor de softwares e as categorias que orientam os agentes da producao de software livre, foi possivel identificar que boa parte das interpretacoes academicas incorpora estas categorias como categorias de analise e, com base nelas, assume um posicionamento diante da tematica, que nao poem em questao a particularidade dos pontos de vista dos proprios agentes. Palavras-chave software livre; economina informacional; modos de agir; acao politica; acao administrativa; Abstract Based on an analysis of the evolution of the software market, up to the creation of free software, the purpose of this article was to review some of the interpretations in the literature about production of free software in the contemporary economy. By establishing a connection between the software market differentiation and the categories that orient free software production agents, it was possible to identify that most of the academic interpretations incorporate those categories into their analysis and, by doing so, end up assuming a position in favour of the thematic that does not question the particularity of the agents' own point of views. Keywords free software; informational economy; political action; administrative action; modes of action