JOURNAL OF SOFTWARE, VOL. 6, NO.

1, JANUARY 2011 31

Economics of Software Reuse and Market

Positioning for Customized Software Solutions
M. Rokunuzzaman+ and Kiriti Prasad Choudhury+*
*
School of Engineering & Computer Science, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), Dhaka, Bangladesh and
+
Beximco Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
[email protected], [email protected]

developing software companies without taking adequate

Abstract—Most of the software companies can neither be
typical software product based company like Microsoft nor preparation of market understanding and developing the
afford to develop each customized application for individual strategy of continuously improving the ability to
customer from clean slate without taking into consideration compete. A company’s strategy is the game plan which
of reuse. Software companies are under increasing management applies to stakeout a market position in
competitive pressure for improving delivery parameters target segment, deliver its solutions, and achieve
such as cost, quality, and time. Systematic reuse is an
organizational objectives [2]. The central thrust of the
opportunity of continued cost reduction, quality
improvement and lead time reduction in software delivery. strategy is undertaking moves to build and strengthen the
Systematic reuse largely depends on the scope of delivering company’s long term competitive position and financial
customized software applications in the same market performance for gaining a competitive advantage over
segment repeatedly to multiple customers. Thorough rivals that then becomes a company’s strength to achieve
market analysis provides basic inputs for defining generic above average profitability.
product concept for delivering mass customized solutions.
Systematic reuse is an important issue in software
The problem of establishing a successful new business
around a generic software product concept is not engineering for increasing productivity and improving
challenging because of shortage of ideas, but rather quality significantly [3]-[5]. Still today, it is a research
problems exist in proper analysis of the market and topic but already accepted as a source of huge benefits,
adoption of reuse capability for continued price reduction when systematic and disciplined approach is introduced
and quality improvement to deal with evolving market in the software engineering process.
forces for delivering mass customized solutions. This paper,
Software product lines [6] are rapidly emerging as a
therefore, suggests the application of market positioning
strategy to benefit from software reuse for delivering viable and important software development paradigm
customized software solutions. In this paper, economics of allowing companies to realize order-of-magnitude
software reuse has been integrated with market positioning improvements in time to market, cost, productivity,
for delivering customized software solution. It is believed quality, and other business drivers. Software product line
that such integration will improve the decision making engineering can also enable rapid market entry and
ability of software professionals for strengthening the
flexible response, and provide a capability for mass
capability of software companies in delivering customized
solutions to target market segment by taking the advantage customization. Successful adoption of software product
of software reuse economics. line practice is a careful blending of technological,
process, organizational, and business improvements.
Index Terms-- Software reuse economics, Software market Rather than building each customized solution from the
segmentation, Market positioning, Product-Line approach,
Domain-specific engineering, Proactive investment and
scratch, as is often done today, significant gains are
Customized software applications. achievable by reusing large portions of previously built
systems in the domain to construct new ones.
I. INTRODUCTION
II. SOFTWARE RESUE- A SIMPLE IDEA BUT COMPLEX IN
Software development and delivery take place in an PRACTICE
economical context [1]. The economic analysis should be
the key of taking software engineering decisions for Since the beginning of computer programming
developing business of software development and software reuse has been practiced. Reuse of libraries,
delivery. The challenge of developing software domain engineering methods and tools, reuse of design
companies is no longer limited to mastering technological and design patters, domain specific software architecture,
capability only. The tasks of crafting and executing and component based software engineering are examples
delivery strategies are the heart and soul of managing a of active areas of software reuse research. An established
software business and winning in the market place. definition of software reuse is the process of creating
Strategy of delivering customized software solutions at software systems from predefined software components.
competitive price appears to be a key competence need It is based on a simple and well-known idea. The most
for developing software companies. Most of the start-up common type of reuse is the reuse of source code, but
initiatives have the temptation to start the journey of other artifacts or intermediate work products produced

© 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER

doi:10.4304/jsw.6.1.31-37
32 JOURNAL OF SOFTWARE, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011

during the software development process can also be III. ECONOMICS OF SOFTWARE REUSE
reused. Reusable software items are called reusable
Several studies have revealed that systematic
assets. These assets may be software designs, software reuse increases productivity and software
requirements, test cases, architectures, models, design quality which leads to economic benefits [8]. The fact
patterns, use cases, code-components etc. that reuse can be justified from an economic perspective
Potential benefits of software reuse include which has led to the development of an array of economic
reduced effort to build software systems, less time-to- model of software reuse. These economic models
market, increased quality such as robustness and primarily focused on estimating benefits if reuse takes
decreased effort required for maintaining software [1]. place. Moreover, development of reusable assets requires
Potential benefit of reuse cannot be achieved at the first additional costs that are difficult to justify for a
project. It requires long-term investment but it increases standalone product or under a single-project management
company’s assets. In addition to development and view. Since reuse benefits accrue over multiple projects
operational benefits, reuse may support strategic or a product line, economic modeling for management
opportunity to lead the market, or the flexibility to decision making should shift to long term view over a
respond to competitive forces and changing market product line or multiple projects. In particular, given
conditions. scare resources management needs to be able to assess
Software reuse has quite significant benefits but whether software reuse will have kind of return that
this simple idea is quite complex in practice [6]. It is not justify up-front investment in reasonability [9]. In this
enough to gather interesting pieces of components into a section, basic economic model of software reuse is stated,
library and offer them to people to reuse. Components which basically has been adapted from previous studies.
The following section integrates this model within the
have to be carefully designed and developed taking into
context of market segmentation and positioning for
consideration of commonality of future projects or
making upfront investment and realizing economic
products so that they are of high quality and work well benefit from reuse through delivery of customized
together to meet future requirements. They have to be solutions to each sub-segment of the target market
documented well so that re-users can understand them segment.
properly. Components have to be carefully chosen so that Let us consider that a software application is
this extra investment will be repaid by significant reuse. composed of m number of components. The reusability
This strategy works best when reuse takes place between takes place at the component level. That means
members of a product line or product family [6]. developers take the decision whether a component should
Although significant progress has been made be reused from existing library or to be developed from
over the decades, many important problems remain to be scratch. The net development cost savings S from the
addressed to increase benefit from reuse. It has been reuse of component library is estimated by the following
reported that a key element in the success of reuse and equation [9],
domain engineering is the ability to predict needed
variations in future assets [7]. The necessity of ª n º
involvement of a method for clearly stating reuse S «¦ (C Ni  CCRi )»  >C PR  A@ (1)
contexts and assumptions has been mentioned in research ¬i 1 ¼
reporting [7]. The critical hurdle of software reuse where
appears to be the justification of capital investment at the n = number of products sharing reusable
beginning of projects. It is about the risk associated with components.
the reuse of assets which are planned to be developed for CNi = cost to develop product i without reuse.
future use. Such risk could be significantly reduced CCRi = cost of creating product i with reuse.
CNi-CCRi = expected producer’s cost saved for product i.
through market research for establishing commonality as
CPR = expected cost that the producer incurs in
well as variations of products to be launched customized
producing the reusable components.
to requirements of certain market segments. The market
A = reuse-specific overhead and setup costs
analysis is an opportunity assessment, which involves incurred by the family of products.
collecting information about market segments and The incorporation of the uncertainty as to
forecasting demands of products having certain attributes whether the component will indeed be reused requires
corresponding to different segments. Market positioning that the probability of each reuse instance should be
is a process in which a company seeks to establish a estimated to compute the expected consumer savings.
definition of its product offerings that is consistent with The model then becomes,
customers’ needs and preferences. The purpose of this
ª n º
work is to address risk associated with the reuse of S «¦ (C Ni  CCRi )» pi  >C PR  A@ (2)
software assets by integrating market positioning with ¬i 1 ¼
software reuse program to reduce associated uncertainties
for maximizing as well as justifying return on investment where, pi = probability that reuse instance i will be
required for developing and using reusable assets. actualized.

© 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER

JOURNAL OF SOFTWARE, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011 33

The objective of this research is to increase this If the value of ni is increased, the cost of a reusable
probability of reuse and the number of products which component i decreases or the benefit from this component
will be reusing them for maximizing cost savings. The increases. Therefore, the cost of delivery of a customized
expected benefits may have the impact on other aspects software solution according to Eq. (3) depends on both
of uncertainty such as development cost saving, which individual reused component specific ni and total number
depends on whether the developer takes advantage of of reused components, o. On the other hand, overall cost
black box reuse opportunities or modifies the component. savings S from reuse according to Eq. (1) also depends on
In such situation, the probability developer will opt for number of deliveries which are making use of reusable
black box or for white box reuse would need to be library. Therefore, it could be stated that we need to
assessed in order to estimate the expected development figure out means to increase values of ni, n, and o for
cost savings. minimizing the cost of customized application delivery
by taking the advantage from reuse. Our proposed
IV. ECONOMICS OF REUSE IN DELIVERING approach of market segmentation and positioning in the
CUSTOMIZED SOLUTIONS target market for repeated delivery of customized
software solutions by making use of a component library
Although technologies for software productivity
has the capacity to increase values of these three
improvement by taking the advantage of reuse through important variables: ni, n, and o.
domain engineering started to appear in early 1980s,
application of these technologies in individual settings
V. MARKET SEGMENTATION AND POSITIONING OF
and stories of success have only been reported in recent
CUSTOMIZED SOFTWARE APPLICATION DELIVERY
past[7]. It has been observed that market demands
increasing product variation and shorter introduction time The market consists of many types of customers,
of software intensive solutions [10]. These two trends products, and needs, and the marketer has to define which
clash, unless we are able to reuse software. Proactive segments offer the best opportunity for achieving
product line approach increases systematic software company objective [11]. The process of dividing a market
reuse. These product lines are setup to create a family of into distinct groups of buyers with different needs,
products, and they rely on a prior analysis of characteristics, or behavior who might require separate
commonalities and differences of the members of the products is called market segmentation. After a company
family. The commonalities are embodied in an overall has defined market segments, it can enter one or many
architecture, while the differences result in variation segments of a given market. Market targeting involves
points. Offering of customized solution or individual evaluating each market segment’s attractiveness and
product to each sub-segment of the target market results selecting one or more segments to enter. Market
in filling variation points. Upon careful market analysis, positioning is arranging a product to enter and expand in
product line architecture could be conceived to create the target market segment.
software components with explicit context dependencies Product differentiation is the process of
and variation points, which then can be combined in distinguishing a product to make it more attractive to the
different ways into products customized to the target market segment. Differentiation is a source of
requirement of each sub-segment of the market. The competitive advantage. In economics, successful product
blending of market segmentation with component based differentiation or customization leads to monopolistic
software engineering as a strategy for market positioning competition. Cost of differentiation is usually high for
is an opportunity to maximize profit from software reuse. developing each differentiated product from clean slate.
It is conceived that a software company has a library Software market segmentation is the division of a
of components having the potential of being reused. The market into different groups of customers with distinctly
development cost saving Cs of delivering a customized similar, not the same, needs and software solution
solution by making use of this reusable library is requirements. It is about the division of a mass market
proposed to be estimated by the following equation, into identifiable and distinct groups or segments, each of
which have common characteristics and needs and
m
ª o cri º display similar responses to certain software solutions.
Cs ¦ c ni  «¦ (  ciri )» (3) The purpose of market segmentation is to leverage scare
i 1 ¬ i 1 ni ¼ resources. Positioning is about the design and attributes
where of a product and its offering in the target market segment.
In order to continuously increase the competitive strength
m = size of the application in number of in the target market segment, a software company needs
components. to continuously find means of improving quality,
cni = cost of new development of the component i. reducing cost and lowering time of delivery. It appears
o = number of components are reused. that mass customization in delivery of software solution
cri = cost of development of reusable components. to a similar group of customers of the target market
ni = number of customized delivery will be using a segment such as hospitals and clinics appears to be a
reusable components. required strategy to strengthen the market position.
ciri = cost of integration of a reusable component i. With a product line concept, a firm fragments its
target market segments into sub-segments that it serves

© 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER

34 JOURNAL OF SOFTWARE, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011

sequentially [12]. To begin with it has been assumed that and the resulting decrease in the ability to meet distinct
a software company has entered the target market performance targets for each solution variant.
segment with a basic solution. Let us develop a simple Let us now investigate how reuse strategy help
model by considering only two types of customers in that this software company to develop leading position in this
target market segment. Fraction A of customers have high market segment. Basic software sub-system of this
valuation and the fraction 1-A have low valuations of the software are (1) Image capturing, (2) Image processing,
same basic solution. High and low valuation customers (3) Feature extraction, (4) Classification, (5) Making
value an undifferentiated version of the product vh and vl decision about defects. The objective of each of these
<vh per period. The ratio of vh/vl will be interpreted as a modules or subsystem is to find a feasible design that
measure of the price premium that the high segment is exhibits product attributes matching the targets set during
willing to pay relative to the low one. Both the firm and market positioning as closely as possible. Here the vector
the consumers live forever and have a discount factor of product attributes Zj for product j represents a set of
E (t ) . Customers’ willingness to pay p(t) for the objective, measurable aspects of the product, observable
undifferentiated product keeps decaying over time as by the customer, resulting from engineering design
shown in the following relationship [12], decisions. In each engineering design subsystem j, search
is conducted with respect to a vector of design variables
xj, which represents decisions made by the designer that
vc are not directly observable by consumers but that effect
p (t ) c l, h (4)
1  E (t ) the reusability of components of that system for deriving
Let us take an example of the entry of a software subsequent differentiated solutions meeting customized
firm in the machine vision based textile defect detection requirements of other market sub-segments. Therefore, in
software [13] market segment of Bangladesh. It is to be order to benefit from software reuse economics design
noted that Bangladesh has a large textile industry with decisions to be made for the design of the current solution
export of more than US$ 12 billion. In this industry, to be linked with the market segmentation and
almost 3 to 5% fabrics is wasted due to the presence of positioning strategy. The market positioning objective is
undetected defects. It is estimated that almost US$200 to maximize profit 3 with respect to the price which is
million could be saved per year by improving textile chargeable for each differentiated or customized solution
defect detection accuracy by introducing machine vision sales which could be made in each sub-segment, and the
based defect detection software solution. The company cost of developing each customized solution. Although
has developed basic version of the software which can firms can specify arbitrarily sophisticated profit functions
deal with limited variations of relevant parameters such based on their experience, internal accounting and
as lighting, color, texture, speed, etc. Only a small historical demand, we propose to use a simple profit
fraction of companies of the target market segment will formulation based on revenue minus cost of each
be target buyers of this basic software of limited customized solution in the form of following equation:
capability. And highly likely it will not be feasible for
this company to earn expected profit by delivering this N M N

software to this small fraction of the target market. Due to 3 ¦¦ p  ¦ C

i 1 j 1
ij
i 1
i (5)
the entry of competitors, the willingness to pay for this
basic software will be likely decreasing over time as where
stated in Eq.(4). Moreover, due to the variation of fabrics N = number of sub-segments of the target market
which different textile mills are producing the software segment.
should be customized to meet their requirements. Such M = number of target customers or potential sales
heterogeneity of requirements, limitation of willingness in each sub-segment.
to pay, and competitive pressure for differentiated Pij = price which could be charged to a
software solution to meet varying requirements have customer of each market segment.
rendered isolated design and production of individual Ci = the cost of developing each customized
software solutions essentially obsolete. Across industries, solution targeting the ith market segment.
standard practice involves lines of product variants that
reduce cost via economies of scale and scope for reaching It could be easily stated that there is a strong
multiple market segments. In software industry it is about relationship between Eq.(1), Eq.(2), and Eq.(3). Design
the reuse of software components. Software components decisions which are taken in customizing solution for a
which are developed the basic version could be reused for particular market segment should be taken for
developing differentiated solution customized to the maximizing the reuse of newly developed components in
requirements of each sub-segment for benefiting from developing solutions customized to other market sub-
economies of reuse as stated in Eq.(1)-Eq(3). The segment as well. Such decision will have significant
development strategy for enjoying economies of reuse for impact on improvement of total savings from reusability
offering customized solution to each sub-segment of the as stated in Eq.(1), reduction of cost of producing each
target market segment focuses on the tradeoff between sub-segment specific customized solution as stated by
increased commonality among these customized solutions Eq.(3) and maximization of the profit by delivering
customized software solution to each sub-segment of the

© 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER

JOURNAL OF SOFTWARE, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011 35

target market as stated by Eq.(5). From such VI. PRODUCT LINE MANAGEMENT FOR
observations, it could be concluded that there is a strong CUSTOMIZED DELIVERY OF SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
relationship between market positioning strategy and
This section generalizes concepts as presented in
benefiting from software reuse. Therefore, software
previous sections of benefit maximization from software
design decisions should be strongly linked with the
reuse through integration of software engineering design
market segmentation and positioning strategy.
decisions with the market understanding, segmentation
It should be noted that the ultimate purpose of
and positioning issues.
domain engineering, software product line and systematic
A successful product line design for maximizing
software reuse is to improve the quality of the products
benefit from software reuse should have a very close
and services that a company provides and, thereby,
coordination between marketing and engineering teams in
maximizes profit [7]. Despite the reality that software
balancing the inevitable tradeoffs. Product lines that
reuse will only succeed if it takes good business sense,
evolves as “optimal from marketers perspective may not
very often software engineering decisions loses sight of
be “optimal” from an engineering viewpoint, and vice
this goal when considering the technical challenges of
versa [14]. In the design of a product line, marketing and
software reuse. The cost for evolving reusable software
engineering considerations are highly interdependent with
assets and retrofitting customized or differentiated
a strong influence to reusability of software assets.
solutions with new assets can be high. There is a need of
Heterogeneous product requirements by different sub-
making upfront investment for building reusable
segments of the market should be taken into
components. There are many options for the management
consideration for leveraging the potential cost synergy
for allocating capital by an organization to maximize
from reuse across products or customized solutions in the
return to shareholders. It has been reported that software
product line. These highly interconnected relationships
reuse will only be chosen for investment if a good case
between the two domains determine that any required
can be made that it is the best alternative choice for use of
action in one domain can potentially influence the
capital[7]. In the corporate environment, the
outcomes in the other domain. Therefore, for the design
implementation of a reuse program requires a decision
of an optimal or near optimal product line, the marketing
about when and where a capital investment is to be made.
and engineering requirements cannot be pursued
Development of reusable assets requires a capital
separately or even sequentially.
investment and there should be a strategic decision as to
Despite the compelling need for a unified framework
whether investment will be made proactively or
that integrates the software design considerations from
reactively. And this investment should be made at the
both disciplines concurrently for increasing economic
beginning of developing a software business proposition
benefits from software reuse there has been very limited
targeting particular market segment in a proactive
knowledge about it in the software engineering literature.
manner. Proactive investment strategy for software reuse
And for this reason, we propose that marketing issues
analyzes the target market segment, conceives product
should be integrated in software design for taking design
line, and defines architectures; then reusable assets are
decisions that not only deliver desired customized
designed and implemented by taking foreseeable product
product for particular sub-segment, but also takes into
variations into account. Such approach tends to require a
consideration of the revenue and cost interactions across
large upfront investment, and returns on investment can
products in the product line for maximizing economic
only be seen along with the progression of positioning in
benefit from software reuse. Basic concept of this unified
the target market segments. This approach is suitable for
framework is depicted in Fig. 1 for a product to meet 5
organizations that can predict their product line
product requirements by choosing design options from a
requirements well into the future. It is obvious that there
set of 6. Selection of a design option has an implication
is an investment risk with this approach due to
on both product attributes as well as reusability of
uncertainty associated with the variations of product line
software components. A close mapping should be done
requirements. This risk could be minimized by linking
between product attributes and design option in order to
software reuse strategy with the market understanding,
maximize profit serving all sub-segments of the market.
suitable market segment selection, and developing
positioning strategy. It is believed that the integration of
Designer options
software reuse economics with the market segmentation
and position strategy established in this paper has the y1 y2 y3 y4 y5 y6
potential to enable software engineers to develop
convincing software reuse based strategic market position
at the very beginning of software development. As a x1 —
result, capital will be allocated for aligning design
requirements

x2 — —
decisions along market positioning strategy for
Product

delivering customized solution to each sub-segment for x3 —

enjoying cost and quality benefits from software reuse for x4 — —
maximizing profit of the company.
x5 — —

Fig. 1: Mapping from design options to

product requirements

© 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER

36 JOURNAL OF SOFTWARE, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011

Within the context of customized software 4l = size of the market sub-segment corresponding
development by taking advantage from reusability, we to lth product.
expect that designer will choose a design option from a
set of available ones to maximize reusability. Remaining We have assumed that the target market segment has
in line with Eq.(1), the cost reduction due to software been divided into L sub-segments. During the planning
reuse by taking advantage of commonality among stage, we propose to analyze commonality and variations
products of the product line can be generalized by taking of software products to be launched customized to each
into consideration of discounted factor Or by the of these L sub-segments of the market. Based on the
following relationship [15]: commonality, investment is recommended to be made in
the software reusability program for minimizing cost of
­° 0 No commonality among products
each product customized to corresponding market sub-
Or segment. The expected market shares depends on the size
® l shr " r Otherwise
(6)
of each sub-segment as shown in Eq.(7). Expected market
°̄ L
share also depends on the utility and price of competitors’
offerings and scope of market expansion.
When there is no sharing of the component r Product line optimization searches for a profit-
among the products or sub-segment specific customized maximizing by simultaneously integrating the design
solutions, the discount factor is zero. The commonality options, customers’ requirements, revenue, and cost into
significance factor " r represents the degree of cost an optimization model. Mathematically, this proposed
savings by sharing the rth software component in the optimization problem to be expressed as follows:
product line. L represents the total number of product or L
customized solutions and lshr represents number of max
{ y1 , y2 ,..., yn }
E (S ) ¦[E(MS ) u ( p
l l  VCl ) u 4 l ]  FCL
products that are sharing the rth component. When all the l 1

products of the product line are sharing the same (8)

component r, the discount factor Or equals to the where
corresponding commonality significance factor " r . yn = a set of design options for dealing with
commonality and variations of the software
Otherwise, the discount factor is a portion of product to derive benefits from reuse.
commonality significance factor depending on the degree
of sharing of the particular component in the product line.
E (S ) = expected profit.
As evident when the degree of component sharing VCl = variable cost of each product line.
increases among the products in the product line, the cost FLL = the fixed cost of the product line.
of producing each customized product meeting As shown in the Eq.(8), the optimization
requirements of the corresponding market segment problem aims to target to select designers’ options having
decreases. influence on reusability and product attributes of each
The revenue model is an important factor to product of the product line to maximize firm’s expected
consider in designing the roadmap of launching one after profit subject to a set of constraints. Within the context
another product customized to each sub-segment of the of maximizing benefits from reusability such constraints
market. The primary focus of our revenue model is to will be guided by the set of commonality and variations
predict the expected revenue of each product line of the set of products of the product line.
candidate [16]. In this model, we take into account the The upfront cost for the reusability program
potential cannibalization among the products in the could be factored in the fixed FLl of Eq. (8) of the
product line as well as the effect of competitive offerings. product line. The cost associated with the reuse of
Like most of the product line revenue models, we start existing components and cost for product specific to new
with prediction of the expected market share for each components in developing customized version of the
product in the product line. Given that one of the essential product for each market sub-segment could be included
issues in product line design is to accurately forecast the in VCl of Eq.(8). The value of VCl will largely depend on
market share of each product in the product line, we the discounted factor Or as defined in Eq.(6), which is
specifically account for the inherent variations in the largely determined by the reusability level.
products’ utility estimates in market share prediction. The It has been reported that there is a growing
expected product line revenue can be estimated as[16] importance of product customization capability
development among firms to compete in market segments
L where scope of differentiation is high [17]. It is widely
E (Z ) ¦[ E (MS ) u p u 4 ]
l 1
l l l (7) believed that software component in industrial as well as
consumer products has been growing in rapid space [10].
Therefore, software reuse strategy could be an important
where capability for not only software firms but also for
E(Z) = expected revenue from the product line. software intensive product firms for reducing cost of
E(MSl) = expected market share of the lth product. delivering differentiated products customized to each
pl = unit price of the lth product. market segment.

© 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER

JOURNAL OF SOFTWARE, VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 2011 37

VII. SUMMARY & CONCLUSION [9] R. Malan, and Kevin Wentzel, Economics of Software
Reuse Revisited, Hewlett-Packard Company, 1993.
Since the beginning of programming software reuse has [10] R. v. ommering, “Software Reuse in Product Populations,”
been of interest because people want to build software IEEE Transaction on Software Engineering, vol. 31, np. 7,
solutions that are bigger, more reliable, less time pp.537-550, 2005.
consuming, less expensive, and that are delivered on [11] G. Armstrong and P. Kotler, Marketing: An Introduction,
time. Although this is a simple idea and benefits are Sixth Edition, Pearson Education Services, Inc, 2003.
clearly visible once successful reuse of software assets [12] Pascal Courty, Some Economics of Product Line
Management, Department of Economics and Business,
developed in past projects is made in current projects.
University Pompeu Fabra, Spain, November 20, 1998,
Despite the simplicity of the idea and visible benefits, http://bonvent.upf.es/~courty/my-public-files/wkpp.html.
systematic reuse as a strategic capability to deal with [13] M. Salauddin and M. Rokonuzzaman, “Adaptive
ever-growing complexity and diversity in products, and Segmentation of Knit Frabric Images for Automated
decrease in lead time has not been realized with mass Defect Detection in Semi-structured Environment,” The
satisfaction yet. The key bottle neck appears to be the Proceedings of the 8th ICCIT Conference, 2005, pp. 255-
ability to predict commonality and variations in products 260.
to be offered to justify proactive investment for [14] Jiao, Jianxin and Yiyang Zhang, “Product Portfolio
reusability program. In this paper, we have presented the Planning with Customer-Engineering Interaction”, IIE
Transactions, 2005, vol. 37, no.9, 801-814.
concept of integration of engineering design decisions
[15] Luo, Lan, P.K. Kannan, Babak Besharati, and Shapour
with market segmentation and position strategy for Azarm, “Design of Robust New Products under
increasing this prediction ability. Limitation of this work Variability: Marketing Meets Design”, Journal of Product
is that further development of this concept is required Innovation Management, 2005, vol. 22, no. 2, 177-192.
with the support of empirical investigation to offer [16] L. Luo, B. Besharati, P. K. Kannan, and S. Azarm,
scientific foundation for decision makers to make “Product Line Design for Consumer Durables: An
proactive investment for strategic use of software Integrated Marketing and Engineering Approach,”
reusability to deliver software or software intensive Working Paper, 2008, U.S. National Science Foundation
solutions customized to each sub-segment of the target through Grant Number DMI 0200029.
[17] D. Bernhardt, Q. Liu, and K. Serfes, “Product
market. It is believed that such development will
Customization,” European Economic Review, vol. 51, pp.
significantly help software and software intensive product 1396-1422, 2007.
companies to deal with ever-growing challenges of
complexity, diversity, lead time, and cost through
software reuse strategy. It appears that integration of
reuse concept with market positioning is very much a
new concept. There is an immediate need for this type of
research for maximizing benefit from software reuse.
REFERENCES:
[1] K. Schmid and M. Verlage, “The Economic Impact of
Product Line Adoption and Evolution,” IEEE Software,
vol. 9, no. 4, pp.50-57, 2002.
[2] A. A. Thomson, J.E. Gamble, and A.J. Strickland,
Strategy: Winning in the Market Place, McGraw Hill,
2004.
[3] M. Morisio, M. Ezran, and C. Tully, “Success and Failure
Factors in Software Reuse,” IEEE Trans. Software Eng.,
vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 340-357, 2002.
[4] Mohagheghi P, Conradi R, Killi OM, and Schwarz H, “An
Empirical Study of Software Reuse vs. Defect-Density and
Stability,” 26th International Conference on Software
Engineering (ICSE’04).H. Poor, An Introduction to Signal
Detection and Estimation. New York: Springer-Verlag,
1985.
[5] T. Menzies and J. S. Di Stefano, “More Success and
Failure Factors in Software Reuse”, IEEE Transaction on
Software Engineering, vol. 29, no. 5 2003.
[6] K. Pohl, G. Bockle, and F. v.d. Linden, Software Product
Line Engineering; Foundations, Principles, and
Techniques, Springer, 2005.
[7] W. B. Fakes and Kyo Kang, “Software Reuse Research:
Status and Future,” IEEE Transaction on Software
Engineering, vol. 31, no.7, July 2005, pp. 529-536.
[8] P. Mohagheghi and R. Conardi, “Quality, Productivity, and
Economic Benefits of Software Reuse: a Review of
Industrial Studies,” Journal of Empirical Software
Engineering, vol. 12, 2007, pp. 471-516.

© 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER