ANALYZING IMPACT OF INTERFACE IMPLEMENTATION EFFORTS ON THE STRUCTURE OF A SOFTWARE MARKET - OSS/BSS Market Polarization Scenario

Oleksiy Mazhelis, Pasi Tyrväinen, Jarmo Matilainen

2008

Abstract

A vertical software market is usually subject to the process of disintegration resulting in a market where different layers of software are provided by independent software vendors. However, as argued in this paper, the process of this vertical disintegration may be affected by high investments to software interface implementation and maintenance. Should the required efforts be large, the threshold for entering the market increases, thereby hampering the vertical disintegration process. This study examines the impact of the interface implementation efforts on the vertical market evolution in the case of the so-called operations support systems and business support systems (OSS/BSS) software, which are employed by the telecom operators in order to support their daily operations. The efforts are compared for two prototypical software vendors serving incumbent operators and new operators respectively. Total efforts are an order of magnitude larger in the former case. Furthermore, even if only latest network protocols are taken into account, the efforts are significantly larger in the former case, therefore requiring several times greater number of employees to implement them. Therefore, a conclusion is made that the OSS/BSS market is likely to polarize into the vertical submarket of large software vendors serving incumbent operators, and the submarket of small vendors serving young operators. The latter submarket, due to the lower entry threshold for new vendors is more likely to be vertically disintegrated.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Mazhelis O., Tyrväinen P. and Matilainen J. (2008). ANALYZING IMPACT OF INTERFACE IMPLEMENTATION EFFORTS ON THE STRUCTURE OF A SOFTWARE MARKET - OSS/BSS Market Polarization Scenario . In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Software and Data Technologies - Volume 2: ICSOFT, ISBN 978-989-8111-52-4, pages 80-87. DOI: 10.5220/0001890200800087

in Bibtex Style

@conference{icsoft08,
author={Oleksiy Mazhelis and Pasi Tyrväinen and Jarmo Matilainen},
title={ANALYZING IMPACT OF INTERFACE IMPLEMENTATION EFFORTS ON THE STRUCTURE OF A SOFTWARE MARKET - OSS/BSS Market Polarization Scenario},
booktitle={Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Software and Data Technologies - Volume 2: ICSOFT,},
year={2008},
pages={80-87},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0001890200800087},
isbn={978-989-8111-52-4},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Software and Data Technologies - Volume 2: ICSOFT,
TI - ANALYZING IMPACT OF INTERFACE IMPLEMENTATION EFFORTS ON THE STRUCTURE OF A SOFTWARE MARKET - OSS/BSS Market Polarization Scenario
SN - 978-989-8111-52-4
AU - Mazhelis O.
AU - Tyrväinen P.
AU - Matilainen J.
PY - 2008
SP - 80
EP - 87
DO - 10.5220/0001890200800087