Challenges and solutions for opening small and medium-scale industrial software platforms

• Establishing open software platforms is becoming increasingly important. Many vendors of large and well-known open platforms, such as Android or iOS, have successfully established huge ecosystems of platform extensions (apps). While such platforms are important role models, the practices and technologies employed by their vendors are often not applicable for smaller platform vendors, who have different goals and carry substantial legacy, such as an existing closed platform. Yet, many vendors start to open their platforms-for instance, when they alone cannot realize all incoming requirements anymore. Unfortunately, very few best practices exist to guide this opening process, especially for small and medium-scale industrial platforms with their specific solutions. We present a study of industrial organizations that successfully opened closed platforms. Using a survey, we identified 18 opened platforms, providing a broad picture, which is complemented with in-depth, qualitative insights from a case study of three organizations. We elicited the platforms' core characteristics, the organizations' opening strategies, as well as challenges and solutions. We believe that our results support practitioners seeking to open platforms, and researchers striving to build better methods and tools.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Programvaruteknik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Software Engineering (hsv//eng)

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