OUR RESEARCH

SCS faculty involved with the SWIC are:

Mary Shaw (Co-Director)

Eric Nyberg

Raj Reddy

Jim Morris

David Garlan

Some Related SCS Software Research:

Institute for Software Research International

Acme: Tools for architectural design

Amaranth

Architectural Modeling and Anaylsis

Aura

Ballista

Center for the Study of the Software Industry

Open Resource CoAlitions

Robust Self-customizing Embedded Systems

Self-Adaptive Software

Shared Object Architecture for Universal Information Access

Software Composition

Software Homeostasis

Good-Enough Software

Viruvius

Universal Library

Wearable Computers

Carnegie Mellon University is creating the Software Industry Center (SWIC). The first of its kind in the country, this Center will be a highly interdisciplinary project involving CMU professors from the School of Computer Science, the Heinz School of Public Policy, the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, and the Software Engineering Institute, who will conduct research in partnership with industry leaders. The Center will focus on cutting-edge trends in economics, management, and technology in the software industry.

The SWIC has received major support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and is the seventeenth Sloan Industry Center in the Nation (for information on the Sloan Industry Centers, see http://www.industry.sloan.org/). The Sloan Foundation invited just one university, Carnegie Mellon, to apply for funding to establish a center to study the software industry because of the university's outstanding strengths in the relevant disciplines and unusual culture of cross-disciplinary research. In addition to substantial backing from Sloan, the SWIC will receive major, multi-year funding from the Pennsylvania Technology Investment Authority, multi-year funding from the Software Engineering Institute's Technology Insertion Demonstration and Evaluation (TIDE) program, as well as membership fees from corporate sponsors. As of April, 2001, ten organizations have made firm commitments to join the Center and we are in discussions with several other potential members. The active participation of partner firms is vital to the success of the center, especially in the rapidly-changing software industry. Beyond sharing business knowledge, partners are asked for a financial commitment of $25,000 per year for an initial three-year period. Partners will influence the agenda of industry-relevant trends in talent, technology, capital, and public policy and will be regularly updated on findings, ahead of others in the business and technical communities.

The Carnegie Mellon software center will explore a number of issues and themes that are fundamental to understanding how the software industry will develop and grow, and the ramifications for business and public policy. The four key research thrusts will be:

• innovation and new business models
• software development practice
• human capital
• globalization.

Additionally, the Center will collaborate with the Software Engineering Institute's Technology Insertion Demonstration and Evaluation (TIDE) to study adoption and integration of advanced software technologies by small manufacturers.

Innovation and New Business Models
Rapid innovation in the software industry is leading to new business models. Companies and regions will have to adapt quickly or cease to be competitive. The ways in which software is produced, distributed and used are changing in profound ways and new business models are emerging, such as internet-based software, free software, and software renting. The world is moving to ubiquitous computing, via such devices as personal digital assistants, smart phones, Internet TVs, and more. Can Schumpeterian innovation - the development of new computing platforms, new applications, new ways of organizing the development and distribution of software - provide the sort of dynamic competition that will discipline and possibly supplant firms that currently dominate software markets? What are the new business models, new computing platforms, new applications, new ways of organizing the development and distribution of software that are emerging? What does the age of Internet software mean? What is the future of software that is embedded in devices other than PCs? What will this mean for firms, regions and nations?

Software Development Practice
Software is used in virtually every sector of the economy and software-based systems play an increasingly vital role. There have been varying degrees of success in the deployment of efficient and effective software development methods and technologies. Software engineering standards and process improvement models have not been universally embraced by the software industry, which raises the question of whether different software practices better fit certain environments. That is, do software practices vary in their effectiveness in different environments? There has been little research in software engineering that considers the intersection between the business environment and the choice and effectiveness of the software practices adopted. However, it is clear that in a dynamic, competitive and global software industry, an understanding of how different software practices relate to organizational performance in particular business environments is essential. The planned research consists of three major activities: characterizing the relevant dimensions of the business environment, describing typologies of software practices, and measuring, assessing and evaluating the fitness of certain types of software practices for certain business environments. The objective is to identify innovative practices in software development and relate them to the changing business environment.

Human Capital: Software Developer Careers and Incentives
In contrast to other industries, where factors of production involved raw materials and physical resources, in software the principal factors of production are knowledge, intellectual capital and talent. But where do programmers come from and where do they go? Virtually all of the research on this issue has focussed on the demand side -- that is, on firms' perceptions of their needs. This research will explore the perceptions and incentives that act on software and the career paths of software developers as they move among companies. A related issue is how the need to attract and retain talent affects the strategies of software companies, their internal organizational structure and the geography of the industry. How are the high mobility of talent and shortages of talent likely to affect the future evolution of the industry?
Globalization

Although the U.S. remains the world's dominant software producer, much has been made in recent years of the growth in offshore software production in places like India, Ireland and Israel. Some have suggested that the rise of offshore software production constitutes a competitive threat to the software industry in the U.S. and other advanced industrial nations. In other cases, U.S. firms are seeking out other countries to establish software development centers and research centers. These firms appear to be driven by a need to tap the talent pools available in these countries. SWIC plans to research the evolution and impact of software production clusters abroad. How is talent being harnessed in major offshore locations such as India, Ireland and Israel? To what degree do universities matter? What are the flows of talent across borders?

Software Adoption for Advanced Manufacturing
With support from the TIDE program, Software Industry Center researchers will undertake in-depth research into organizational, economic, and technical factors affecting the demand for manufacturing and engineering software. The work will be based on field research in Pittsburgh-area engineering and manufacturing firms. The goal is to develop a set of best practice guidelines to enable small and medium enterprises to better exploit rapid advances in information and software technologies. Additionally, the center plans to leverage the relationships it has developed and to use this sub-sector as a case study to develop and validate new economic models of software renting. Small manufacturers typically do not have adequate resources to explore and integrate new technologies, are unable to make the large investments required to purchase and maintain manufacturing software. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many of these firms would be willing to rent software, if a viable business model could be worked out. Developing such a model requires addressing a number of technical and economic questions. Besides generating insights about new business models, this research will also have a practical aim of developing a viable model for software renting.

IMPACT AND OUTCOMES
The Software Industry Center is being established with a strong commitment to perform industry relevant research and to disseminate the findings broadly to impact industry performance. Its objective is to become the major resource center for the software industry and the policy and research communities relevant to that industry. SWIC research will be seeded, informed, and supported by its industry partners. The findings will be disseminated to the partners, and then more broadly, through a variety of products. The Center will develop an on-line newsletter, with issues devoted to specific topics relevant to the industry. It will produce an annual State of the Industry Report, analyzing the key trends driving the industry. The report will be disseminated via major trade associations and media partners. In addition to traditional academic papers, the Center will produce regular press releases, news columns and opinion editorials. The Software Industry Center will produce at least one major trade industry book that will help to increase the understanding of the software industry. InformationWeek has agreed to feature the Center's research - particularly the work on human capital issues - in its on-line and print versions. The explicit acknowledgement of the need for industry-relevant, problem-driven research, the partnerships with industry associations, and the importance we attach to broad and multiple sources for disseminating the research, constitute a new model for an industry center. Accomplishing this will require world-class researchers, working on critical problems in partnership with industry and government, whose findings are disseminated and translated into new management practices, business models and public policies. SWIC believes it has all the elements in place.

For more information, contact:

Dr. Donald J. McGillen
Executive Director, Software Industry Center
Heinz School of Public Policy and Management
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
(412) 268-6755 voice
(412) 268-7036 fax
mcgillen@cmu.edu