Software business

This article has multiple issues. Please help or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. Please help by providing more context for the reader. (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article or section appears to be slanted towards recent events. Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective and add more content related to non-recent events. (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) The examples and perspective in this article may not include all significant viewpoints. Please or discuss the issue. (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. Please by rewriting it in a balanced fashion that contextualizes different points of view. (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (March 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Software Business is the commercial activity of the software industry, aimed at producing, buying and selling software products or software services. The business of software differs from other businesses, in that its main good is intangible^[1] and fixed costs of production are high while variable costs of production are close to zero.^[1][2]

Types of software businesses[]

Cusumano ^[3] and Nambisan ^[4] divide software companies (supplier-side) into service and product companies according to how they conduct business. Popp and Meyer give a more detailed analysis of different types of business models of software companies.^[1]

Software product business[]

In the Software product business, Software is licensed for installation and execution on a user- or customer-supplied infrastructure. In the software product business, revenues typically originate from selling software upgrades to the customer.

Software service business[]

Software services business is a strategy of a software company whose offering consists mainly of services or consulting relating to software development.

Characteristics of software services business[]

Generally, business model of a software company can be categorized as a product company, services company or a hybrid between these two models.^[5] Software service business can also refer to offering Software as a Service.

Software services business can be categorized into the following categories:

• Companies that provide consultation services related to software business
• Companies that provide software development services as a subcontractor.

Service Operations[]

Characteristics of Service Operations ^[6] that are relevant to software services industry:

• Intangibility: Service is produced instead of tangible product. Therefore, service innovations can be easily copied by competitors.
• Perishability: Human resource intensive services cannot be produced in advance, therefore demand and supply is difficult to manage. This also affects business scalability.
• Heterogeneity: Service encounters are unique and customer needs vary, therefore software services are difficult to standardize and productize. Therefore, service business is also difficult to scale.....

See also[]

• Business models for open source software

References[]