SOFTWARE REUSE AND COMPETITION - CONSUMER PREFERENCES IN A SOFTWARE COMPONENT MARKET

Research on software reuse has traditionally focused on reuse among em ployees within the same organization. In contrast, our research invest igates consumer preferences in a software component market with multip le producers and consumers of software components. We propose that emp irically studying competition in software component markets is crucial to discovering success factors for improving software reuse. To facil itate such research, we have developed an experimental market laborato ry called SofTrade; we report here the results of two empirical studie s made possible by this environment. Our results support some existing reuse maxims, such as the concept that consumers prefer to reuse comp onents that are general and flexible. Other established reuse beliefs are not supported by our results, such as the expectation that consume rs will prefer objects with unique, complex features. Overall, the res earch reported here strongly supports the claim that the practice of e xploring software reuse activity within real or artificial software co mponent markets produces unique insights into how we can improve softw are reuse.