Evaluation

Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer basic questions about projects, policies and programs[1]. Program evaluation is used in the public and private sector and is taught in numerous universities. Evaluation became particularly relevant in the U.S. in the 1960s during the period of the Great Society social programs associated with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations[2][3]. Extraordinary sums were invested in social programs, but the impacts of these investments were largely unknown.

Program evaluations can involve quantitative methods of social research or qualitative methods or both. People who do program evaluation come from many different backgrounds: sociology, psychology, economics, social work. Some graduate schools also have specific training programs for program evaluation.
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Marketing

Marketing strategies for product software assist software firms to determine the type of market analysis that is needed for decision-making. Two general strategies that are well known in the marketing discipline are:
marketing mix; and
relationship marketing.

"Marketing mix" is the typical strategy for traditional mass marketers of product software in competitive markets. Structured market research, and agility in reacting to sales, are characteristic of their product development process (Alajoutsijarvi et al., 2000). An example would be Electronic Arts, with their various home computer software games, which are advertised on television and sold in many electronic stores.

"Relationship marketing", (closely associated to CRM), is used by product software companies who focus on long-term customer relationships (Alajoutsijarvi et al., 2000). An example of this is SAP, which offers enterprise resource planning systems, along with support (since the software is complicated to install). Maintaining customer relationships helps sell additional modules and future upgrades.

Broethers and van't Kruis explain two other strategies that are important to the growth of software firms:
a service-based strategy; and
a different marketing channels strategy.

Information about customer preferences, observations of customer reactions, and knowledge of past mistakes are important for the "service-based strategy". "Different marketing channels strategy" tries to discover non-traditional marketing channels to help increase distribution of software products to other target markets that take advantage of positional differences. "Alliance-based strategies", on the other hand, are helpful at providing knowledge exchanges, opening previously inaccessible markets (such as export markets), and an overall larger market access (1997).

Besides helping with current strategies, market analysis can improve future planning and growth strategies that are helpful in product roadmapping decisions. It also helps discover areas where "complementary product development" and "diversification strategies" can be profitable. Complementary goods can be in the form of other software products, hardware, or services, such as consultancy, user training, and customization (Rao & Klein, 1994). The development of these goods increases the opportunities for companies in the software market (Sengupta, 1998). Even complementary products from other vendors can lead to an increase in the value of the original product, while reducing the time to market (Messerschmitt & Szyperski, 2004).

The complementary product strategy adds value by showing innovation, and creates a multiplier effect on the original product (Sengupta, 1998). Investing in other products and services aids in diversification, which can increase the overall customer base, and helps decrease the risks of being overly specialized (Rao & Klein, 1994). Diversification can, therefore, increase the financial health of the company. An example of this is Microsoft, which has increased the sales of its primary operating system software by offering products, such as word processing, and media player software.


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Portal Software

Portal Software was founded in 1985 as Portal Information Network, one of the first ISPs in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded by John Little. The company offered its own interface through modem access that featured Internet email. Towards the end of the 1980s, the company offered FTP.

During this time, the company developed its own account management software. In 1992, John Little decided to focus on developing Portal's internal software for other ISPs, which he saw as a fast evolving market. Their ISP business was shut down and the accounts sold to Sprint. The company was renamed Portal Software in 1993 and Dave Labuda joined the new company as co-founder. Little and Labuda developed a scalable and flexible real-time enterprise software architecture, which they applied to the management of customers and revenue for internet and telecom service providers.

Portal Software developed a billing and revenue software suite (Portal Infranet) primarily targeted at telecommunications companies and ISPs. It was one of the largest companies in its business. Customers of Portal Software included PSINet, AOL Time Warner, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, France Télécom, iG Brazil, KPN, Orange UK, Reuters, SIRIUS Satellite Radio, Sprint Canada, Telefónica, Telenor, Telstra, TIM, U.S. Cellular, Vodafone and XM Satellite Radio. In order to address the telecommunications market, Portal software acquired the InteGrate software from Solution42, a German company which had a history in high-performance telecommunications Rating. This allowed a realistic performance of rating telephony usage events, something that was not feasible with the 'real-time' rating engine they had developed in-house.

Portal Software was bought by Oracle Corporation[1] in 2006 for an estimated $220 Million.[2] Portal Software, together with Metasolv software, is now a business unit of Oracle. Like other acquisition software, Portal Software will be integrated with the core products of Oracle such as Siebel (CRM), PeopleSoft (ERP/CRM), JD Edwards (ERP).

With version 7.3, the first since Oracle's acquisition, it has been renamed as "Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management", although in practice, the users still refer to it as the shorter name of "Portal".

The former SVP of Sales, Services, Support, Marketing, Alliances, Business Development, Investor Relations, and Strategic Customer Relationships - Bhaskar Gorti, continues to serve as the GM of Oracle's Communications Group. The former VP of Americas - Bruce Grainger continues to serve as the VP of Americas for the Communications Group.

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Software Marketting

Marketing strategies for product software assist software firms to determine the type of market analysis that is needed for decision-making. Two general strategies that are well known in the marketing discipline are:
marketing mix; and
relationship marketing.

"Marketing mix" is the typical strategy for traditional mass marketers of product software in competitive markets. Structured market research, and agility in reacting to sales, are characteristic of their product development process (Alajoutsijarvi et al., 2000). An example would be Electronic Arts, with their various home computer software games, which are advertised on television and sold in many electronic stores.

"Relationship marketing", (closely associated to CRM), is used by product software companies who focus on long-term customer relationships (Alajoutsijarvi et al., 2000). An example of this is SAP, which offers enterprise resource planning systems, along with support (since the software is complicated to install). Maintaining customer relationships helps sell additional modules and future upgrades.

Broethers and van't Kruis explain two other strategies that are important to the growth of software firms:
a service-based strategy; and
a different marketing channels strategy.

Information about customer preferences, observations of customer reactions, and knowledge of past mistakes are important for the "service-based strategy". "Different marketing channels strategy" tries to discover non-traditional marketing channels to help increase distribution of software products to other target markets that take advantage of positional differences. "Alliance-based strategies", on the other hand, are helpful at providing knowledge exchanges, opening previously inaccessible markets (such as export markets), and an overall larger market access (1997).

Besides helping with current strategies, market analysis can improve future planning and growth strategies that are helpful in product roadmapping decisions. It also helps discover areas where "complementary product development" and "diversification strategies" can be profitable. Complementary goods can be in the form of other software products, hardware, or services, such as consultancy, user training, and customization (Rao & Klein, 1994). The development of these goods increases the opportunities for companies in the software market (Sengupta, 1998). Even complementary products from other vendors can lead to an increase in the value of the original product, while reducing the time to market (Messerschmitt & Szyperski, 2004).

The complementary product strategy adds value by showing innovation, and creates a multiplier effect on the original product (Sengupta, 1998). Investing in other products and services aids in diversification, which can increase the overall customer base, and helps decrease the risks of being overly specialized (Rao & Klein, 1994). Diversification can, therefore, increase the financial health of the company. An example of this is Microsoft, which has increased the sales of its primary operating system software by offering products, such as word processing, and media player software.


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Marketing documentation

Marketing documentation

For many applications it is necessary to have some promotional materials to encourage casual observers to spend more time learning about the product. This form of documentation has three purposes:-
To excite the potential user about the product and instill in them a desire for becoming more involved with it.
To inform them about what exactly the product does, so that their expectations are in line with what they will be receiving.
To explain the position of this product with respect to other alternatives.

One good marketing technique is to provide clear and memorable catch phrases that exemplify the point we wish to convey, and also emphasize the interoperability of the program with anything else provided by the manufacturer.

Marketing strategies for product software

Marketing strategies for product software assist software firms to determine the type of market analysis that is needed for decision-making. Two general strategies that are well known in the marketing discipline are:
marketing mix; and
relationship marketing.

"Marketing mix" is the typical strategy for traditional mass marketers of product software in competitive markets. Structured market research, and agility in reacting to sales, are characteristic of their product development process (Alajoutsijarvi et al., 2000). An example would be Electronic Arts, with their various home computer software games, which are advertised on television and sold in many electronic stores.

"Relationship marketing", (closely associated to CRM), is used by product software companies who focus on long-term customer relationships (Alajoutsijarvi et al., 2000). An example of this is SAP, which offers enterprise resource planning systems, along with support (since the software is complicated to install). Maintaining customer relationships helps sell additional modules and future upgrades.

Broethers and van't Kruis explain two other strategies that are important to the growth of software firms:
a service-based strategy; and
a different marketing channels strategy.

Architecture/Design documentation

Architecture/Design documentation

Architecture documentation is a special breed of design document. In a way, architecture documents are third derivative from the code (design document being second derivative, and code documents being first). Very little in the architecture documents is specific to the code itself. These documents do not describe how to program a particular routine, or even why that particular routine exists in the form that it does, but instead merely lays out the general requirements that would motivate the existence of such a routine. A good architecture document is short on details but thick on explanation. It may suggest approaches for lower level design, but leave the actual exploration trade studies to other documents.

Another breed of design docs is the comparison document, or trade study. This would often take the form of a whitepaper. It focuses on one specific aspect of the system and suggests alternate approaches. It could be at the user interface, code, design, or even architectural level. It will outline what the situation is, describe one or more alternatives, and enumerate the pros and cons of each. A good trade study document is heavy on research, expresses its idea clearly (without relying heavily on obtuse jargon to dazzle the reader), and most importantly is impartial. It should honestly and clearly explain the costs of whatever solution it offers as best. The objective of a trade study is to devise the best solution, rather than to push a particular point of view. It is perfectly acceptable to state no conclusion, or to conclude that none of the alternatives are sufficiently better than the baseline to warrant a change. It should be approached as a scientific endeavor, not as a marketing technique.

A very important part of the design document in enterprise software development is the Database Design Document (DDD). It contains Conceptual, Logical, and Physical Design Elements. Database Design Document includes the formal information that the people who interact with the database needs. The purpose of preparing the DDD is to create a common source to be used by all players within the scene. The potential users are:
Database Designer
Database Developer
Database Administrator
Application Designer
Application Developer

When talking about Relational Database Systems, the document should include following parts:
Entity - Relationship Schema, including following information and their clear definitions:
Entity Sets and their attributes
Relationships and their attributes
Candidate keys for each entity set
Attribute and Tuple based constraints
Relational Schema, including following information:
Tables, Attributes, and their properties
Views
Constraints such as primary keys, foreign keys,
Cardinality of referential constraints
Cascading Policy for referential constraints
Primary keys

It is very important to include all information that is to be used by all actors in the scene. It is also very important to update the documents as any change occurs in the database as well.

Software documentation

oftware documentation or source code documentation is written text that accompanies computer software. It either explains how it operates or how to use it, and may mean different things to people in different roles.
Involvement of people in software life

Documentation is an important part of software engineering. Types of documentation include:
Requirements - Statements that identify attributes, capabilities, characteristics, or qualities of a system. This is the foundation for what shall be or has been implemented.
Architecture/Design - Overview of software. Includes relations to an environment and construction principles to be used in design of software components.
Technical - Documentation of code, algorithms, interfaces, and APIs.
End User - Manuals for the end-user, system administrators and support staff.
Marketing - How to market the product and analysis of the market demand.

From Software

From Software is a Japanese software company founded in November 1986 that develops games for Sony's PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo's DS, Wii, GameCube, Xbox, Xbox 360, Sega's Dreamcast, and mobile phones. The Armored Core series is From Software's largest franchise.

From Software's Armored Core series is their largest franchise. Thirteen titles have been developed for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The recent thirteenth Armored Core title, Armored Core For Answer or Armored Core 4A was released on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in Japan on 2008-03-19.

From Software is well known for the Otogi and Tenchu series and has strong ties to Sega, which distributes many of their titles overseas. From Software's signature series is Armored Core, for which they've so far developed 13 titles. From Software is also the developer of the Xbox 360 game [[Chromehounds]] and role playing games Enchanted Arms and King's Field.

Open source software

Open source software (OSS) is computer software for which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that meets the Open Source Definition or that is in the public domain. This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified forms. It is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open source software is the most prominent example of open source development and often compared to user-generated content.[1] The term open source software originated as part of a marketing campaign for free software.[2] A report by Standish Group states that adoption of open source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers.[3][4]

Software icon

On computer displays, a computer icon (or simply an icon) is a small pictogram. Icons have been used to supplement the normal alphanumerics of the computer. Modern computers now can handle bitmapped graphics on the display terminal, so the icons are widely used to assist users.

Icons were first developed as a tool for making computer interfaces easier for novices to grasp in the 1970s at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center facility. Icon-driven interfaces were later popularized by the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating environments.

A computer icon usually ranges from 16 by 16 pixels up to 128 by 128 pixels. Some operating systems feature icons up to 512 by 512 pixels. When the graphical output device has a smaller size, the icon size is small. Vision-impaired users (due to such conditions as poor lighting, tired eyes, medical impairments, bright backgrounds, or color blindness) may need to utilize the self-selected icon size options.

Programming Tools

A programming tool or software development tool is a program or application that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support other programs and applications. The term usually refers to relatively simple programs that can be combined together to accomplish a task, much as one might use multiple hand tools to fix a physical object.

The history of software tools began with the first computers in the early 1950s that used linkers, loaders, and control programs. Tools became famous with Unix in the early 1970s with tools like grep, awk and make that were meant to be combined flexibly with pipes. The term "software tools" came from the book of the same name by Brian Kernighan and P. J. Plauger.
Tools were originally simple and light weight. As some tools have been maintained, they have been integrated into more powerful integrated development environments (IDEs). These environments consolidate functionality into one place, sometimes increasing simplicity and productivity, other times sacrificing flexibility and extensibility. The workflow of IDEs is routinely contrasted with alternative approaches, such as the use of Unix shell tools with text editors like Vim and Emacs.
The distinction between tools and applications is murky. For example, developers use simple databases (such as a file containing a list of important values) all the time as tools. However a full-blown database is usually thought of as an application in its own right.
For many years, computer-assisted software engineering (CASE) tools were sought after. Successful tools have proven elusive. In one sense, CASE tools emphasized design and architecture support, such as for UML. But the most successful of these tools are IDEs.
The ability to use a variety of tools productively is one hallmark of a skilled software engineer.

Software Evaluation

Program evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer basic questions about projects, policies and programs[1]. Program evaluation is used in the public and private sector and is taught in numerous universities. Evaluation became particularly relevant in the U.S. in the 1960s during the period of the Great Society social programs associated with the Kennedy and Johnson administrations[2][3]. Extraordinary sums were invested in social programs, but the impacts of these investments were largely unknown.

Program evaluations can involve quantitative methods of social research or qualitative methods or both. People who do program evaluation come from many different backgrounds: sociology, psychology, economics, social work. Some graduate schools also have specific training programs for program evaluation.
wiki

Portal Software

Portal Software was founded in 1985 as Portal Information Network, one of the first ISPs in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was founded by John Little. The company offered its own interface through modem access that featured Internet email. Towards the end of the 1980s, the company offered FTP.

During this time, the company developed its own account management software. In 1992, John Little decided to focus on developing Portal's internal software for other ISPs, which he saw as a fast evolving market. Their ISP business was shut down and the accounts sold to Sprint. The company was renamed Portal Software in 1993 and Dave Labuda joined the new company as co-founder. Little and Labuda developed a scalable and flexible real-time enterprise software architecture, which they applied to the management of customers and revenue for internet and telecom service providers.

Portal Software developed a billing and revenue software suite (Portal Infranet) primarily targeted at telecommunications companies and ISPs. It was one of the largest companies in its business. Customers of Portal Software included PSINet, AOL Time Warner, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, France Télécom, iG Brazil, KPN, Orange UK, Reuters, SIRIUS Satellite Radio, Sprint Canada, Telefónica, Telenor, Telstra, TIM, U.S. Cellular, Vodafone and XM Satellite Radio. In order to address the telecommunications market, Portal software acquired the InteGrate software from Solution42, a German company which had a history in high-performance telecommunications Rating. This allowed a realistic performance of rating telephony usage events, something that was not feasible with the 'real-time' rating engine they had developed in-house.

Portal Software was bought by Oracle Corporation[1] in 2006 for an estimated $220 Million.[2] Portal Software, together with Metasolv software, is now a business unit of Oracle. Like other acquisition software, Portal Software will be integrated with the core products of Oracle such as Siebel (CRM), PeopleSoft (ERP/CRM), JD Edwards (ERP).

With version 7.3, the first since Oracle's acquisition, it has been renamed as "Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management", although in practice, the users still refer to it as the shorter name of "Portal".

The former SVP of Sales, Services, Support, Marketing, Alliances, Business Development, Investor Relations, and Strategic Customer Relationships - Bhaskar Gorti, continues to serve as the GM of Oracle's Communications Group. The former VP of Americas - Bruce Grainger continues to serve as the VP of Americas for the Communications Group.
Wiki

Software Marketing

Marketing strategies for product software assist software firms to determine the type of market analysis that is needed for decision-making. Two general strategies that are well known in the marketing discipline are:
marketing mix; and
relationship marketing.

"Marketing mix" is the typical strategy for traditional mass marketers of product software in competitive markets. Structured market research, and agility in reacting to sales, are characteristic of their product development process (Alajoutsijarvi et al., 2000). An example would be Electronic Arts, with their various home computer software games, which are advertised on television and sold in many electronic stores.

"Relationship marketing", (closely associated to CRM), is used by product software companies who focus on long-term customer relationships (Alajoutsijarvi et al., 2000). An example of this is SAP, which offers enterprise resource planning systems, along with support (since the software is complicated to install). Maintaining customer relationships helps sell additional modules and future upgrades.

Broethers and van't Kruis explain two other strategies that are important to the growth of software firms:
a service-based strategy; and
a different marketing channels strategy.

Information about customer preferences, observations of customer reactions, and knowledge of past mistakes are important for the "service-based strategy". "Different marketing channels strategy" tries to discover non-traditional marketing channels to help increase distribution of software products to other target markets that take advantage of positional differences. "Alliance-based strategies", on the other hand, are helpful at providing knowledge exchanges, opening previously inaccessible markets (such as export markets), and an overall larger market access (1997).

Besides helping with current strategies, market analysis can improve future planning and growth strategies that are helpful in product roadmapping decisions. It also helps discover areas where "complementary product development" and "diversification strategies" can be profitable. Complementary goods can be in the form of other software products, hardware, or services, such as consultancy, user training, and customization (Rao & Klein, 1994). The development of these goods increases the opportunities for companies in the software market (Sengupta, 1998). Even complementary products from other vendors can lead to an increase in the value of the original product, while reducing the time to market (Messerschmitt & Szyperski, 2004).

The complementary product strategy adds value by showing innovation, and creates a multiplier effect on the original product (Sengupta, 1998). Investing in other products and services aids in diversification, which can increase the overall customer base, and helps decrease the risks of being overly specialized (Rao & Klein, 1994). Diversification can, therefore, increase the financial health of the company. An example of this is Microsoft, which has increased the sales of its primary operating system software by offering products, such as word processing, and media player software.


WIKI