A process framework and typology for software product updaters.

Product software is constantly evolving through extensions, maintenance, changing requirements, changes in configuration settings, and changing licensing information. Managing evolution of released and deployed product software is a complex and often underestimated problem that has been the cause of many difficulties for both software vendors and customers. This paper presents a framework and typology to characterize techniques that support product software update methods. The framework is based on a detailed process model of software updating. Finally, this paper assesses and surveys a variety of existing techniques against the characterisation framework and lists unsolved problems related to software product updater

Lightweight incremental application upgrade

I present a lightweight approach to incremental application upgrade in the context of component-based software development. The approach can be used to efficiently implement an automated update feature in a platform and programming language agnostic way. A formal release model is presented which ensures consistency and allows the computation of incremental updates. Finally I show how this model can be implemented on top of Subversio

Release and deployment at Planon: a case study

This case study report describes the research results of a case study at Planon into the processes of development, release, and deployment. The research was done to document the release and deployment processes at Planon, to uncover strengths and weaknesses in these processes, and to compare Planon to other product software vendors. The case study was performed by doing interviews and examining development documentation, Planon software, and internally used tools. The results of the case study are organizational descriptions, Planon software descriptions, and the descriptions of the development, release, and deployment processes. The main conclusions of the case study are twofold. First the case study shows that striving for more integrated software knowledge management can relieve the processes of release and deployment. Secondly, the case study displays that extensive variation management can effectively increase the customer base for a software vendo

The Dynamics of Co-Creation in the Video Game Industry: The Case of World of Warcraft

These latest years have seen both an increasing development of Users Generated Content (UGC) on the Internet and a growing number of free transactions of these contents through online communities. The video game industry shares this general trend and we shall examine it in detail through the example of a worldwide success game, World of Warcraft (WoW). This massively multiplayer online (MMO) game exhibits two specific economic characteristics. The first one is that the original content is produced by a game developer who keeps intellectual property rights while leaving open to players some possibilities to modify that original content into an enhanced content. We call this innovation process, which involves both the participation of the producer and of consumers, co-creation. Based on a typology of the different UGC in WoW, we specify the meaning of co-creation and put forward some arguments on the players' motivations to co-create and their consequences on the attractiveness of the gameplay to the players' community. The second characteristic is that co-creation is not limited to the design of the game before its marketing. It is a continuous interaction between players and developer even after its marketing. This dynamic process requires both regulatory actions by the developer and a new industrial organization to distribute these UGC through the WoW players' community.open innovation, online community, video game, innovative user, customization

An implementation of the Linux software repository model for other operating systems

Year after year, the frequency of updated releases of soft-ware continues to increase. Without an automated install process, the result is either that a system installs software with known defects and/or vulnerabilities, or systems require increased manual labor to maintain up-to-date software in-stallations. Linux packages, in conjunction with repositories, fill this need for automation to reduce both undesirable situa-tions. This model can be modified to a generic operating sys-tem environment, such as Windows, which currently lacks the capability to update arbitrary software applications. Our application, Appupdater, demonstrates this concept of de-tecting, downloading, and installing upgrades automatically. This provides a completely automated upgrade cycle

Social media adoption by microbusinesses

The social media implementation process (initiation, adoption, adaptation, acceptance, use and incorporation) is examined in correlation with the five factors (individual, organisational, technological, environmental and performance). Numerous existing theories from the innovation, technology adoption and performance measurement literature are used to derive probable relation between the implementation process and the five factors. Such expansive scope and comprehensive theory development has been articulated but never attempted. To manage the large scope, microbusinesses are selected purposefully due to their limited business processes. The research design reflects the need for relevance by using Lewin’s action research (traditional social change model) as the primary method augmented by participant observation (physical and online). Data collection uses a mix of unstructured, semi-structured and structured interviews assisted by structured observation. Data analysis uses a set of routines, such as tabulation, categorisation, abstraction and verification, involving prediction and testing. The research finds that a collaborative process to address concerns, along with quick start and self-training, helped to adopt social media. Participants needed to focus on concrete experience, work-place learning and personal knowledge for learning to use social media. Usefulness arising from improved communication, fitness and medium richness was the dominant indicator for acceptance and use. Continued use relied on satisfaction and habit of the user. Individual characteristics and personality factors both seemed to be a poor indicator of adoption with weak links towards extroversion. Microbusinesses suffered primarily from context and mental mode related challenges for social media use. Type of business, such as service shops, had a greater probability of success. Social media positively affected relationship marketing in terms of service quality. Business activity associated with specialisation seemed to perform poorly with social media. Finally, performance measurement techniques included finding the capability of social media to meet survival objectives, improve capacity utilisation and business resale value