About

What we are

While many of the challenges and opportunities of a software business and the software industry are general business challenges, software business is also unique in various ways, reflecting the special characteristics of software as an economic and social good.

Thus, the Software Business Community is dedicated to uncovering the unique challenges of the business of software, including software suppliers, service providers and product companies heavily dependent on software, major users of software, firms providing services to all these participants, and the software industry as a whole. It provides a forum where individuals and organizations with various complementary perspectives, such as suppliers, service providers, and end-users can come together to create and archive a relevant body of knowledge. The community takes various perspectives, including relevant academic disciplines (economics, management, software engineering, the social sciences, and others), the expertise and experience of managers and practitioners, empirical and field research, and theory. The ultimate goal is to make software businesses of all types, and the software industry as a whole, more successful.

The goals and scope of SWBCommunity.org are defined by the Editorial Board.

We are in startup mode

The Software Business Community concept and web site have been under development since January 2008.. We hope you like it! The Community just went "live" on the Internet in June 2008, so we are still in the process of accumulating a critical mass of content, Members, Editors, Sponsoring and Affiliate Organizations, Editorial Board members, and so forth. If you believe in the concept and value of this Community, please volunteer to help out!

Progress meter

Check our Milestone page to see how we were doing in the past months.

Contact us

Sponsoring organizations

Sponsoring organizations provide the financial resources for hosting, design, and maintenance of this web site. We gratefully acknowledge the following sponsoring organizations:

Affiliate organizations

Affiliate organizations lend their prestige and assistance to making SWBCommunity.org a success, through concrete efforts to expand and improve its content and soliciting colleagues to join the community. They are:

• Software Business Laboratory, Helsinki University of Technology
• School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University
• Department of Information Processing, University of Oulu

You can contact us to add your organization to the list of affiliates.

How we started

SWBCommunity.org was started by the Software Business Foundations Project in the Software Business Laboratory in fulfilling its goal of facilitating an international research community in software business.