Public "Beta" launches have become a preferred route of entry into the markets for new software products and web site based services. While beta testing of novel products is nothing new, typically such tests were done by experts within firm boundaries. What makes public beta testing so...

The introduction of product upgrades in a competitive environment is commonly observed in the software industry. When introducing a new product, a software vendor may employ behavior-based price discrimination (BBPD) by offering a discount over its market price to entice existing customers of...

As software ages, it is increasingly unable to leverage new technologies and fulfill the evolving user requirements. As a result, firms get an opportunity to introduce and sell upgrades that provide higher utility to consumers compared to an older and out-of-date software product. This is...

In this paper, we model competition between two software product vendors, an incumbent and entrant, with specific focus on the role of switching costs. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that under certain conditions the switching costs imposed by the incumbent's product could actually...

Many successful open source projects have been developed by who were employed by firms but worked on the open source projects on the side due to economic incentives like career improvement benefits. Such side work may be a good thing for the employing firms too if they get some strategic value...