Eetu Luoma

Defining an Internet-of-Things Ecosystem

By bringing the Internet connectivity to the things, the Internet-of-Things (IoT) promises a number of benefits to its customers, varying from faster and more accurate sensing of our environment, to more cost-efficient tracking of industrial processes. Likewise, from the business perspective, the wide adoption of IoT is expected to generate significant revenues to the providers of IoT application and services. The IoT adoption depends on whether the ecosystems of the companies focusing on IoT technologies would emerge and succeed in delivering to the market the solutions attractive to the customers. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to understand the essence and constituents of IoT ecosystems. This paper is aimed at defining an IoT ecosystem from the business perspective. Based on a literature survey, the technologies that could form a core of an IoT ecosystem are summarized, and the roles of the firms which may comprise such an ecosystem are identified.

Current Software-as-a-Service Business Models: Evidence from Finland

This paper characterizes the business models of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) firms based on their value proposition, customer segments, revenue streams, and customer relationship, and analyzes interconnections of these business model elements. The target set of 163 Finnish SaaS and ASP firms was first compared to other software firms and then clustered into four clusters based on indicator data of their business model elements. The comparison reveals that the SaaS and ASP firms have smaller customer and transaction sizes than software firms in general. The resulting classification reveals two different configurations, a pure-play SaaS model and an enterprise SaaS model, and the typical factors of these business models.

Managerial Growth Challenges in Small Software Firms: A Multiple-Case Study of Growth-Oriented Enterprises

Notwithstanding the importance of small software firms, research focusing on understanding the growth challenges faced by their management is close to non-existent. By taking a life-cycle approach and focusing on managerial challenges, the aim of this paper is to analyze the growth process of small software firms. After forming a synthesis of possible growth challenges from relevant literature, the results are reflected upon case software firms using thematic interviews and questionnaires. According to the analysis of four software firms, managing human resources represents the greatest challenge for software services firms. Additionally, other challenges stem from competition and sales-related activities. Comparative analysis of the literature and the cases leads toward a theoretical conceptualization of growth challenges from small software firm’s perspective.

Overview of Telecom Operator Software Market

Telecommunications is an essential enabler of modern societies and a global vertical industry, providing communication and information services, with its annual revenue of over trillion euros. In this book, a company providing these services is referred to as a telecom operator or communications service provider (CSP). CSPs create value by offering connectivity to and via an infrastructure of networks for transferring signals. The core business processes in a telecom operator company therefore revolve, on one hand, around physical networks and their maintenance, and on the other, managing their customers and their use of the connectivity services over the networks.

Market scope of vendors in the OSS software market

This paper studies the market scope of vendors that produce software for telecommunications operators, i.e. the Operations Support Systems (OSS) market. The aim is to find out the strategies used by vendors in the OSS market. The market scope is studied on two dimensions: 1) the breadth of the scope in the OSS market; and 2) focus on the telecommunications industry. The breadth of market scope is divided into four categories: niche, vertical, layer and broad scope. We examine empirical vendor data from the years 2002 and 2005. Results show that all hypothesized strategies are present in the market. Most of the firms have either a niche, a vertical or a broad market scope, and they are specialized in telecommunications. The situation has not changed much from 2002 to 2005, but the number of vendors has decreased.

Network Analysis of Platform Ecosystems: The Case of Internet of Things Ecosystem

Software platform providers are often seen as the cornerstone of their business ecosystem, where the other ecosystem players utilize the platform’s standardized components together with complementary components for making applications. These platforms are also becoming a cornerstone of the emerging Internet of Things (IoT) business ecosystem comprised of the companies who provide Internet-enabled devices, applications, connectivity solutions, and the platforms for the IoT usage. While a number of enabling technologies for IoT is available, the question remains what kind of ecosystem emerges around IoT platform providers and whether this ecosystem is evolving in line with the theoretical models describing business ecosystem development. In order to address this question, we constructed a network model for the IoT ecosystem and considered how it had changed over the period of a year and a half. Our findings indicate that the ecosystem is still in early evolutionary phase, although some signs of consolidation are starting to appear. A mainstream solution is still missing and many vendors are trying to make their platform a dominating one.

Adoption of Open Source Software and Software-as-a- Service Models in the Telecommunication Industry

A case research is carried out on adoption of open source software (OSS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) in the telecommunication industry. The study was conducted to examine the types of software deployed as OSS and SaaS and the conditions of adopting OSS and SaaS. Findings of the case study indicate that industry-specific software is not developed as OSS or deployed in SaaS mode. Based on the findings, we also arrive at conclusion: Adoption is hindered by specificity of processes and technology interfaces.

Software-as-a-Service in the Telecommunication Industry: Problems and Opportunities

This paper examines the telecommunication software market and the adoption of topical Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model in this vertical market. The aim of this paper is to estimate which telecommunication software products are likely to be provided as a Service, and to examine the potential factors disallowing SaaS adoption. The set aim is pursued by studying both the supplying software vendors and the communication service providers (CSP) as customers. A set of thematic interviews, software industry statistics and information disclosed by the software vendors are used in the analysis. The results of the analysis reveal challenges in adopting SaaS for telecommunication software as well as suggest that SaaS offerings are more likely to appear in specific areas of CSP operations, rather than as a comprehensive solution.

Current and emerging requirements for digital rights management systems through examination of business networks

Digital rights management (DRM) is an issue of controlling and managing digital rights over intellectual property. Research on the DRM domain focuses on specifying requirements for management systems from variety of perspectives, however, mainly concentrating on protecting rights in business to consumer trade with certain mechanisms. This article takes a novel viewpoint in evaluating DRM issues from the perspective of networked business operations. In contrast to studies on DRM, the article evaluates the creation and delivery of content in along an asset creation-delivery continuum in terms of role specifications, content processes and management of digital rights over content, i.e. assets, in formations of firms. Our interest in this conceptual study is on the issues of networked business models and, consequently, we contribute in defining and analyzing the complexities of such scenarios and from case scenario deriving emerging requirements for digital rights management in the introduced context. While simultaneously providing certain advantages to enterprises, the inter-organizational interdependencies in networked business model are prone to cause conflicts, thus, creating an increased need for control, contracting and coordination activities. We conclude that in order to build trust between various actors, multiple agreements describing rights and obligations of operation and over assets needs to be negotiated and signed, thus, establishing a requirement for utilization of standardized digital rights expressions and efficient agreement creation and management.

Examining Business Models of Software-as-a-Service Firms

The paper focuses the attention to different business models and intended strategic aims of the firms providing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). SaaS vendors have been said to challenge the business practices of the existing vendors providing proprietary or customer-specific solutions. The current studies on the topic have shown that SaaS is different from preceding software business models, but consider and emphasize SaaS business model as an invariable configuration. This case study compares two SaaS firms with different backgrounds and reveals characteristics of two very different SaaS business models. The findings indicate that along with SaaS vendors providing only standard software applications and focusing on cost efficiency, there are vendors who provide more specialized software applications and complement the SaaS offering with services required by larger customers.