Agent-Based Modelling and Simulation of the Software Market, Including Open Source Vendors,
Luisanna Cocco, G. Concas, Michele Marchesi, Giuseppe Destefanis · UNICA IRIS Institutional Research Information System (University of Cagliari) · 2013
In recent years, the software market has undergone profound changes. The power balance between software firms and customers is heavily changing. The contractual power of customers is increasing and the firms must take it into account. The software appears overpriced, customers' willingness to pay is reducing, and consequently vendors are providing different pricing models for software, including terms licensing, software -as-a-service and commercial open The aim of this paper is to show that a simulation -based approach to analyze the software market is viable. Therefore, in this work a business model is proposed to analyze and study how the purchase preferences of customers can modify futu ios in the software market. We analyzed the competition among proprietary and open source software firms, but the model can be customized to study other kind of markets, and several other assumptions can be made for studying their implications The better way to obtain operational savings seems to be that to shift to the use of open source software, obtaining in this way all the benefits of this software typology: lower costs, greater adherence to open standards, more choic in and flexible incremental architectures.