Software ecosystem modeling: the value chains

  • Authors:

  • Eko Handoyo;Slinger Jansen;Sjaak Brinkkemper

  • Affiliations:

  • Universiteit Utrecht, De Uithof, The Netherlands and Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, Indonesia;Universiteit Utrecht, De Uithof, The Netherlands;Universiteit Utrecht, De Uithof, The Netherlands

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Management of Emergent Digital EcoSystems
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

The software ecosystem is providing a new way of interpreting the software industry. Primarily, software ecosystem modeling, one of the most studied areas in the software ecosystem domain, is an emerging field. However, modeling software ecosystems present several challenges: (a) How can value chains be identified in an ecosystem? (b) What are the typical roles that an actor plays in an ecosystem? (c) How can a boundary in an ecosystem be described? To capture the ecosystem of the Dutch software industry, we performed forty-two case studies. This work enhanced the software supply network diagram to define the proposed diagrams of an ecosystem within this industry. We determined eight value chain models that can be used to identify typical roles that an actor plays in an ecosystem. We observed that most, if not all software producing organizations are hybrid companies in that they fill multiple roles in the value chains. The resulting models enable ones to identify actors and their roles quickly in an ecosystem. Moreover, they facilitate further understanding of the elemental business models and value chains. As such, this work provides an elementary step towards a software ecosystem modeling language.