In recent years, new types of software have emerged and dramatically changed the structure of the whole software industry. Software-as-a-service and open software are the most prominent competitors to traditional software providers. How software should delivered, and towards which direction the industry will be driven have become essential questions faced by both researchers and practitioners.

Emerging Ideas and Initiatives

We build game theory models to analyze the pricing issues facing software providers in a competitive market. The analysis makes the following two major predictions. First, the software-as-a-service business model is likely to further develop and prosper in the future, and it might even take a dominant position in the software industry. Second, the emergence of open source software helps to force the existing packaged software providers to reduce price as well as to improve quality.

Selected Publications

[1] Ma, D. and A. Seidmann. The Pricing Strategy Analysis for the “Software-as-a-Service” Business Model. GECON 2008 LNCE Proceedings, The 5th International Workshop on Grid Economics and Business Models (GECON), 2008. To appear.

[2] Ma, D. The Business Model of Software-as-a-Service. IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (SCC), 2007.

[3] Ma, D. and A. Seidmann. The Competition between ASP On-Demand versus MOTS In-House Software Systems. 10th INFORMS Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST), 2005.

Projects, Presentations and Posters

1. MA, D., Grid pricing and capacity models, Grid Asia 2007 (presentation)
2. MA, D., D. OH, S.-F. CHENG, and R. BAPNA, Designing an experimental gamingplatform for trading grid resources, 2nd International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems & Technology (DESRIST), 2007
3. MA, D. and A. SEIDMANN, ASPs versus MOTS software solutions, presented at Stanford University, 2007; University of Michigan, 2007; the 10th INFORMS Conference on Information Systems and Technology (CIST), 2005; and the Workshop on Information Systems and Economics (WISE), 2004 (presentation)