Title: Marketing challenges in the software component business

Authors: Nina Helander, Pauliina Ulkuniemi

Addresses: Institute of Business Information Management, Tampere University of Technology, P.O. Box 541, 33101 Tampere, Finland. ' Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Department of Marketing, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4600, 90014 Oulun yliopisto, Finland

Abstract: Software components are complex, technology-intensive products that require special competencies not only from the people who are developing the components, but also from the people who market and sell the components. Technical challenges and competencies have already been discussed rather extensively in literature in terms of software component engineering; however, somewhat surprisingly, the marketing aspects have not yet been the foci of current research. In this paper, we aim to fill from our own end the gap in research on how to market software components. The purpose of this paper is to increase our knowledge about the challenges related to marketing commercial software components and to make propositions as to how to overcome these challenges. As the pre-existing literature about marketing commercial software components is still rather non-existent, the present study has a strong empirical focus and follows inductive research methods.

Keywords: marketing challenges; marketing competencies; technology intensive products; software components; software business; case study; technology marketing; commercial software.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTMKT.2006.010733

International Journal of Technology Marketing, 2006 Vol.1 No.4, pp.375 - 392

Published online: 25 Aug 2006 *

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