Past Projects
CLOUD BUSINESS RESEARCH - CLOUD SOFTWARE PROGRAM
The Cloud Software Program (2010-2013) has 27 partner companies and universities in Finland. Aalto University is one of the partners. The Software Business Laboratory (SBL) at Aalto university conducts the research on the Cloud Business.
The program aims to significantly improve the competitive position of Finnish software intensive industry in global markets. Most significant factors of competitiveness are operational efficiency, user experience, web software, open systems, and security. Cloud software ties these factors together as software increasingly moves to the web. Cloud Software program especially aims to pioneer in building new cloud business models, lean software enterprise model and open cloud software infrastructure. The vision is that by 2015 the Finnish software industry will substantially increase the value of its software assets due to it’s world-class capability and know-how to efficiently and competitively develop, deliver and use software competencies with a focus on defining, building and utilizing software assets and new ecosystems that have the largest sustainable value add for the global business.
Cloud Business Research (2010-2013) in the Software Business Laboratory (SBL) focuses on cloud business through the Oskari database, on new business models, and on customer perspective to the cloud offering.
The cloud business models use open networks to offer software-based services on demand to the internal and/or external value network. Open interfaces, web technology, distributed processing and storage over the Internet, and open source software are used. Cloud Business research studies how the could technology impacts business models and business environment on supplier and customer side. Using software as a service i.e. SaaS over the Internet shifts emphasis from high cost software and project delivery to pay-as-you-use revenue models.
Changes in the business environment require ICT companies to develop their offering. Naturally the customers will face new offerings. Use of external providers for processing and storage capacity relieves software vendors and service users from secondary IT maintenance. Providing service through the Internet lowers the sales and deployment costs. Cloud technologies make it easier for the foreign sw companies to enter the Finnish market and for the Finnish ICT companies to service international markets. IT integration business will change and value added services as a revenue stream generator will increase. Companies need strategies to change traditional software assets to support the new business models.
The research focus area involves the modern software business strategies and models, and value creation networks.
The project is funded by Tekes and about 25 companies and universities, see the project site.
Project director: Timo.Nyberg (at) Aalto.fi
OSKARI
OSKARI (http://www.softwareindustrysurvey.org) is a survey project of the software industry in several European countries. The project is based on the annual Finnish Software Industry Survey that has for the last twelve years followed the development of the Finnish software industry.
The International Software Industry Survey expands the Finnish Software Industry Survey to a number of European countries this year. The survey's objective is to provide information about the current state of the software industry and companies in European countries.
The main focus of the 2010 survey is on the impact of recession on software firms. Additionally, analyses of firm level growth and business models are included in the final report.
As an additional goal, the project serves as a powerful data collection vehicle. The data that are combined across years and augmented with third-party sources provide a valuable resource for those researchers working at SBL who are interested in statistical analysis.
The project has been during its 13 year history closely tied to notable funding partners, such as Federation of Technology Industries (Teknologiateollisuus ry), The National Technology Agency (Tekes), The Centre of Expertise Program, Software Entrepreneurs Association, The Finnish Centre for Open Source Solutions (COSS), Microsoft Oy, Culminatum Ltd Oy, and The Finnish Information Processing Association (FIPA) to mention a few. Other partners offering their expertise to the use of the project have been e.g. The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA) and Statistics Finland.
The project has produced each year a final report both in PDF and printed book format. Examples of these and other project publications can be found at: http://www.softwareindustrysurvey.org/node/13.html.
During the past three years, each participated company in a survey has received a mass-tailored company specific report, which compares the company with the whole industry. The report has been found to be very useful by the respondent companies. An example of the last year's report can be found here:
http://www.softwareindustrysurvey.org/sites/default/files/Firm_report_example.pdf.