Software Ecosystem - Understanding an Indispensable Technology and Industry

David G. Messerschmitt

Clemens Szyperski

The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England

Copyright 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Messerschmitt, David G.
Software ecosystem : understanding an indispensable technology and industry /
David G. Messerschmitt and Clemens Szyperski.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.

0-262-13432-2

(hc.: alk. paper)
1. Computer software. 2. Computer software—Development. 3. Computer
software industry. I. Szyperski, Clemens. II. Title.

QA76.754.M47 2003
005.3—dc21 2002044404

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Dody and Laura
—D.G.M.

To Bianca, Leonie, Lennard, Amelie, and Luca
—C.A.S.

About the Authors

David G. Messerschmitt is the Roger A. Strauch Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) and the Acting Dean of the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley. From 1993 to 1996 he served as chair of EECS, and prior to 1977 he was with AT&T Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey. Current research interests include the future of wireless networks, the economics of networks and software, and more generally the interdependence of business and economics with computing and communication technology. He is active in developing new courses on information technology in business and information science programs, and introducing relevant economics and business concepts into the computer science and engineering curriculum. He is the author of a recent textbook, Understanding Networked Applications: A First Course, and the co-author of a widely used textbook, Digital Communications. He is a cofounder and former director of TCSI Corporation of Alameda, California. He is on the advisory board of the Fisher Center for Management and Information Technology in the Haas School of Business, the directorate for Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering at the National Science Foundation, and a member of the NSF Blue Ribbon Panel on Cyber-infrastructure, and he recently co-chaired a National Research Council study on the future of information technology research. He received a B.S. degree from the University of Colorado, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a recipient of the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal recognizing "exceptional contributions to the advancement of communication sciences and engineering."

Clemens A. Szyperski is a software architect at Microsoft Research, where he furthers the principles, technologies, and methods supporting component software. He is the author of an award-winning book, Component Software: Beyond Object-Oriented Programming, and numerous other publications. He is the charter editor of the Addison-Wesley Component Software professional book series. He is a regular contributor to the Beyond Objects series of the widely read Software Development magazine. He is a frequent speaker, panelist, and committee member at international conferences and events, both academic and industrial. He is the originator and co-organizer of the series of Workshops on Component-Oriented Programming, held annually since 1996 in conjunction with the European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming. He served on review panels for major national funding boards in Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the United States. He is a frequent reviewer for learned journals on computer science and software engineering. He has served on the program committees of numerous conferences, including ECOOP, ICSE, and OOPSLA. He received an M.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Aachen Institute of Technology in Germany. He received a Ph.D. degree in computer science in 1992 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich under the guidance of Niklaus Wirth. In 1992-93 he held a postdoctoral scholarship at the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1994 to 1999 he was tenured as associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, where he still holds an adjunct professorship with the School of Computing Science. In 1993 he co-founded Oberon Microsystems, Inc., Zurich, Switzerland, with its 1998 spin-off, esmertec inc., also Zurich.