The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad - Hardcover

Cusumano, Michael A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 074321580X ISBN 13: 9780743215800

Verlag: Free Press, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

The world's leading expert on the global software industry and coauthor of the bestseller Microsoft Secrets reveals the inner workings of software giants like IBM, Microsoft, and Netscape and shows what it takes to create, develop, and manage a successful company -- in good times and bad -- in the most fiercely competitive business in the world.
In the $600 billion software industry it is the business, not the technology, that determines success or failure. This fact -- one that thousands of once glamorous start-ups have unhappily discovered for themselves -- is the well-documented conclusion of this enormously readable and revealing new book by Michael Cusumano, based on nearly twenty years of research and consulting with software producers around the world.
Cusumano builds on dozens of personal experiences and case studies to show how issues of strategy and organization are irrevocably linked with those of managing the technology and demonstrates that a thorough understanding of these issues is vital to success. At the heart of the book Cusumano poses seven questions that underpin a three-pronged management framework. He argues that companies must adopt one of three basic business models: become a products company at one end of the strategic spectrum, a services company at the other end, or a hybrid solutions company in between. The author describes the characteristics of the different models, evaluates their strengths and weaknesses, and shows how each is more or less appropriate for different stages in the evolution of a business as well as in good versus bad economic times. Readers will also find invaluable Cusumano's treatment of software development issues ranging from architecture and teams to project management and testing, as well as two chapters devoted to what it takes to create a successful software start-up. Highlights include eight fundamental guidelines for evaluating potential software winners and Cusumano's probing analysis, based on firsthand knowledge, of ten start-ups that have met with varying degrees of success.
The Business of Software is timely essential reading for managers, programmers, entrepreneurs, and others who follow the global software industry.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Michael A. Cusumano is the Sloan Management Review Distinguished Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and one of the world's leading authorities on software development and the management of software companies. He is the author or coauthor of seven other books, including the bestsellers Microsoft Secrets and Competing on Internet Time, as well as Japan's Software Factories and most recently Platform Leadership.

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Chapter 1

The Business of Software: A Personal View

If the software business were like other businesses, there would be no need for this book. But software is not like other businesses. First of all, the technology consists of a digital "soft" good -- usually English-like programming commands eventually translated into zeros and ones -- that provide instructions to a computer. These instructions form products that companies can standardize for many users, customize for individual users, or do something in between. Companies that rely on this highly malleable technology for their livelihoods must be unique in many ways, particularly in how they deal with business models, product strategy, people (especially software engineers), and management of a core activity: software development.

There are many examples of how software technology and software companies differ from what we see in traditional manufacturing and service industries. In how many businesses does making one copy or one million copies of your product cost about the same? How many businesses have up to 99 percent gross profit margins for their product sales? In how many businesses do many products companies eventually become services or hybrid companies (that is, providing some customization of product features and technical services such as system integration and maintenance), whether they like it or not? In how many businesses is there frequently a ten- or twentyfold difference in productivity between your best employee and your worst one? How many businesses tolerate some 75 to 80 percent of their product-development projects routinely being late and over budget, with "best practice" considered to be 20 percent on time? How about a company where the people who build products often consider themselves artists rather than scientists or engineers and have the mercurial temperament to go with it? In how many businesses are customers "locked in" to a particular vendor because of product decisions someone made a decade or two ago that can't easily be reversed?

The software business also differs from conventional industries because it is not really one kind of business. Software becomes whatever function or application it addresses. This means that the range of possible products and services is almost infinite. Software can help you write a report, calculate your taxes, build a bridge, navigate an automobile, control the space shuttle, or dial your telephone. Not surprisingly, there are many categories and even layers of software products and customized programs that work with one another to form complete systems (such as networking software with operating systems, and operating systems with applications). The definitions of these categories and layers are relatively well accepted, though Microsoft and other companies have been blurring the traditional distinctions for many years.

These and other observations describe aspects of software technology, software companies, and the software business. They also describe some other high-tech markets, such as telecommunications and various types of businesses heavily dependent on information systems and digital content. But surely these observations describe an unusual type of business.

As I discuss in Chapters 2 and 3, get the strategy and the management side right, and the software business can be like having a license to print money. Just ask Bill Gates of Microsoft or Larry Ellison of Oracle, among many other software billionaires and multimillionaires around the world. But get the business model wrong, and -- to borrow a metaphor from Frederick Brooks's The Mythical Man-Month -- software companies can resemble dinosaurs futilely trying to escape the death grip of an ancient tar pit. The more you struggle -- that is, the more time, money, and people you pour into product development, sales, and marketing in the hope of a turnaround -- the deeper you sink and the quicker you die. In the software business, this is not only because the more people you add to a late software project, the later the project can become -- a rule of thumb now described as "Brooks's law" (and not always true). But the broader downward spiral can accelerate for a whole company and become self-fulfilling as present and potential customers flee from software producers unlikely to survive long enough to deliver, support, and upgrade their products.

In bad economic times, or when there is bad corporate news, we can see the sales of once high-flying software companies suddenly drop as if they had fallen off a cliff. Billion-dollar companies can shrink to half their peak size (e.g., i2 Technologies), declare bankruptcy almost overnight (e.g., Baan), or turn suddenly from modern-day gold mines into investment nightmares. SAP, Oracle, Siebel Systems, Business Objects, and many other blue-chip software companies lost 80 to 90 percent of their value at one time or another during 2000-2002, depending on when an investor bought the stock -- despite having solid products and businesses. Even Microsoft dropped about two thirds of its value during this period of boom and bust. We have seen this phenomenon of rapid growth and dramatic decline as well in the telecommunications equipment and services industries (e.g., Lucent and WorldCom), businesses that are also heavily based on software technology but even more distressed in terms of profits and sales.

Since software technology, software companies, their people, and their markets have unique challenges and opportunities, I believe that the business requires a unique approach to strategy and management. For example, software managers, programmers, and entrepreneurs need to encourage innovation wherever and whenever they can, but they have a special need to contain it as well; otherwise projects and plans can spin out of control. Perhaps most important, a large number of software companies -- those selling "enterprise software" to other companies and large organizations -- have to be nimble enough to tailor their products and their strategies to the needs of individual users and particular kinds of customers. Often they must survive the transition from selling high-margin products to selling low-margin services, especially in bad economic times and as their products and customer bases age.

This last idea -- that many software companies need to sell both products and services to maintain a successful business -- is a central theme throughout this book. I argue in Chapter 2 that there are basically three business models that fall along a spectrum: On one end are software products companies, which get all or most of their revenues from new product sales (called "software license fees"). On the opposite end are software services companies, which get a majority of their revenues from IT consulting, custom software development, integration work, technical support, systems maintenance, and related activities. In the middle are what I call hybrid solutions companies -- software firms that have some new product sales but derive as much as 80 percent of their revenues from services and "maintenance" (incremental product updates or special enhancements sold through long-term contracts to the purchasers of the initial software license).

I also argue that even companies trying to emphasize products eventually end up selling more services and incremental maintenance upgrades to their existing customer base than new products to new customers. They often fall unwittingly into the services or hybrid business models and are not prepared for the change. Bad economic times can accelerate this transition as customers postpone purchases of new software products. It also seems an almost inevitable transition for software companies that sell to corporate customers (enterprises): their revenues increasingly consist...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Free Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2004
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 074321580X
• ISBN 13: 9780743215800
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar