The 8th International Conference on Software Business will be held in Essen and co-located with the 29th CAiSE conference. This year’s ICSOB is focused on software startups and their role in scientific research, besides the more traditional topics. ICSOB is organized for the first time this year along topical tracks with track chairs that manage each track.

Conference theme: Startups in Research

Advancements in the software industry have had a substantial impact on productivity and GDP growth globally. There is a noticeable spillover within other industries (e.g. manufacturing) enabling new business models. Software business refers to commercial activities in and around the software industry aimed at generating income from the delivery of software products and services.

Although the business of software shares common features with other international knowledge-intensive businesses, it carries many inherently unique features. It is making it a challenging domain for research. The examples of many successful companies show that software provides unique benefit to its users. Moreover, software has spread all over the world and has permeated in many industries, which are not usual for software. In particular, software companies have to depend on one another to deliver a unique value proposition to their customers or a unique experience to their users.

Please find the track and topic list below:

Software Ecosystems and App Stores – Chair: Konstantinos Manikas

App economy
Repository mining
Software Supply Network analysis
Software Business Development – Ricardo Machado

Business models of cloud computing and software intensive services
Business models of software companies
Economics of software companies
Internationalization
Outsourcing, global and cultural aspects of software business
Licensing, intellectual property and patent issues
Continuous Improvement – Helena Holmstrom Olsson

Software product management
Effects of business models on software development
Continuous delivery
Agile methods for product development
Platform Governance – Thomas Kude

Corporate networks
Mobile software business trends
Mergers and acquisition in the software industry
Software Startups – Xiaofeng Wang

Environment success factors for software business and startups
Software startup processes
Disruptive innovation and adoption of startups
Managing startup growth
Research dissemination through startups
New Ideas and General Track – Slinger Jansen

Games and gamification
Impact on megatrends (e.g. customization) on software business
Software business education
Software business today and in the future
You are very welcome to submit your papers to one of these tracks.

Cross-functional use of software is a challenge for industry and academia, studying not only use of software but also software business, software production, and other surrounding themes. This year the conference intends to attract practitioners and researchers, who are concerned with software business in different ways as well as its introduction to new areas of research and practice. The main theme of 2016 focuses on addressing the challenges that software faces in its application in different business domains.

ICSOB 2017 intends to attract researchers and practitioners who are concerned with software business in different ways. You are invited to submit papers addressing contemporary issues emerging at the intersection of the software and business domains, broadly defined. Both papers reporting research results and industrial experiences are welcome.

We welcome both research and industry papers to the conference. The papers should be original and not submitted to or accepted by any other conference or journal. We are looking for short position and practice papers that provide insights on the lifecycle management of software products and industry case studies as well as full research papers describing novel approaches to software business for software products and services.