7 January 2013

Thesis chapter 10: Introducing open software ecosystems for embedded systems

This chapter investigates a possible way for an an organisation to move from approach B to A, and explores open software ecosystems as possible approach to development of embedded software.
A shorter version of this chapter is previously published as
U. Eklund and J. Bosch. “Introducing Software Ecosystems for Mass-Produced Embedded Systems”. Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Business. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing. Cambridge, MA, USA: Springer, 2012, pp. 248–254. isbn: 978-3-642-30745-4. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-30746-1_20.

Abstract

Embedded systems are today predominantly developed with an integration-centric approach. The paper identifies the need to remove fullscale integration and process synchronisation of involved development teams. The paper presents software ecosystem as an alternative approach to develop embedded software and identifies a set of key activities for how an original equipment manufacturer can introduce an ecosystem. An example of a software ecosystem is presented for the car industry together a case which implemented some of the ecosystem platform properties.