Choosing Component Origins for Software Intensive Systems: In-House, COTS, OSS or Outsourcing?-A Case Survey
Journal article, 2018

The choice of which software component to use influences the success of a software system. Only a few empirical studies investigate how the choice of components is conducted in industrial practice. This is important to understand to tailor research solutions to the needs of the industry. Existing studies focus on the choice for off-the-shelf (OTS) components. It is, however, also important to understand the implications of the choice of alternative component sourcing options (CSOs), such as outsourcing versus the use of OTS. Previous research has shown that the choice has major implications on the development process as well as on the ability to evolve the system. The objective of this study is to explore how decision making took place in industry to choose among CSOs. Overall, 22 industrial cases have been studied through a case survey. The results show that the solutions specifically for CSO decisions are deterministic and based on optimization approaches. The non-deterministic solutions proposed for architectural group decision making appear to suit the CSO decision making in industry better. Interestingly, the final decision was perceived negatively in nine cases and positively in seven cases, while in the remaining cases it was perceived as neither positive nor negative.

Decision making

COTS

outsourcing

OSS

in-house

Author

Kai Petersen

Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, BTH

Deepika Badampudi

Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, BTH

Syed Muhammad Ali Shah

SICS Swedish ICT AB

Krzysztof Wnuk

Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, BTH

Tony Gorschek

Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, BTH

Efi Papatheocharous

SICS Swedish ICT AB

Jakob Axelsson

SICS Swedish ICT AB

Severine Sentilles

Mälardalens högskola

Ivica Crnkovic

Chalmers, Computer Science and Engineering (Chalmers), Software Engineering (Chalmers)

Antonio Cicchetti

Mälardalens högskola

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering

0098-5589 (ISSN) 19393520 (eISSN)

Vol. 44 3 237-261

Subject Categories

Transport Systems and Logistics

Reliability and Maintenance

Software Engineering

DOI

10.1109/TSE.2017.2677909

More information

Latest update

6/12/2018