The last decade has changed the face of electronic world: from Web 2.0 to open source software; from e-(electronic) to m- (mobile) and now to touch. For Web developers is a real challenge to make compatible interfaces to all existing Internet browsers. This proves to be even more expensive than...

The America Invents Act (“AIA”) gave modern patent law in the United States a general prior user rights defense. The patent right is enforced via infringement litigation, but enterprises sometimes obtain patents for defensive purposes. Alternately, an enterprise that does not pursue a patent...

Fierce competition in the market is driving software vendors to rely on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) strategies and to continuously match new software versions with customers’ needs and competitors’ moves. Although release management as a recurrent activity related to SaaS arguably shapes...

The software industry frequently maintains that software piracy is no more than theft and a cause of huge losses. Courts and other policy makers easily adopt that straightforward argument. Surprisingly, however, many software publishers do not employ any technological measures to protect their...

Economic analysis often reviews the role of principles - such as respect for intellectual property rights - in driving innovation. Given the interdependent nature of innovation in information technology, three core principles have emerged that work together to ensure that complementary,...

Distributing freeware or trialware is a common practice of most publishers in the software market in order to increase potential users' experience prior to their final purchasing. Third-party rating of new software is an objective quality reference to the users as well. We develop an empirical...

Product sampling is a part of promotion tools to increase the sales of goods. Especially, the marginal sampling cost for consumer is close to zero in software market since consumers may download a freeware or trial version of the focal product easily through the internet. Unlike other consumable...

One of the puzzling aspects of open source software (OSS) development is its public good nature. Individual developers contribute to developing the software, but do not hold the copyright to appropriate its value. This raises questions regarding motives behind such effort. We provide an...

PowerPoint has come to dominate organizational life in general and strategy making in particular. The technology is lauded by its proponents as a powerful tool for communication and excoriated by its critics as dangerously simplifying. This study takes a deeper look into how PowerPoint is...

There has been a recent surge of interest in open source software development, which involves developers at many different locations and organizations sharing code to develop and refine programs. To an economist, the behavior of individual programmers and commercial companies engaged in open...