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Software Ecosystem
Understanding an Indispensable Technology and Industry
David G. Messerschmitt and Clemens Szyperski
 Table of Contents
Software has gone from obscurity to indispensability in less than fifty years. Although other industries have followed a similar trajectory, software and its supporting industry are different. In this book the authors explain, from a variety of perspectives, how software and the software industry are different—technologically, organizationally, and socially.
The growing importance of software requires professionals in all fields to deal with both its technical and social aspects; therefore, users and producers of software need a common vocabulary to discuss software issues. In Software Ecosystem, Messerschmitt and Szyperski address the overlapping and related perspectives of technologists and nontechnologists. After an introductory chapter on technology, the book is organized around six points of view: users, and what they need software to accomplish for them; software engineers and developers, who translate the user's needs into program code; managers, who must orchestrate the resources, material and human, to operate the software; industrialists, who organize companies to produce and distribute software; policy experts and lawyers, who must resolve conflicts inside and outside the industry without discouraging growth and innovation; and economists, who offer insights into how the software market works. Each chapter considers not only the issues most relevant to that perspective but also relates those issues to the other perspectives as well. Nontechnologists will appreciate the context in which technology is discussed; technical professionals will gain more understanding of the social issues that should be considered in order to make software more useful and successful.
About the Authors
David Messerschmitt is Roger A. Strauch Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.
Clemens Szyperski is a Software Architect at Microsoft in Redmond and affiliated with Microsoft Research. He is a School of Computer Science Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology, Australia.
| "This book is an excellent analysis of how software affects our lives. It is required reading for any serious student of the computer industry and its effects on business, innovation, and economic growth."
—Nicholas Economides, Stern School of Business, New York University, and Director, NET Institute
"Marketers, programmers, consultants, and lawyers all participate in the software ecosystem. This book will help professionals who fill any of these roles to go beyond the buzzwords to understand the rest of the system they inhabit."
—Paul Resnick, University of Michigan School of Information
"Software Ecosystem is an encyclopedic and cutting-edge book. Bridging the technological and business spheres, it will be a terrific resource for anyone working in or studying the software industry."
—Richard N. Langlois, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut
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| Winner in the category of Business, Management & Accounting in the 2003 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc.
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