Introduction to software product lines : Engineering, service, and management minitrack

Software has become the key asset for competitive products and services in all industries. Thus, competitiveness in software development, maintenance, and related services has become a concern for organizations. Competitiveness can be increased through (1) internal strategies such as the strategic creation and reuse of software assets and (2) external strategies such as outsourcing software development, maintenance, and/or services from third party service providers and acquiring off-the-shelf components from providers and open source communities. A viable third strategy is to enact both strategies in parallel. This minitrack focuses on the first and third strategy. The minitrack accepted five papers this year. One of them appears in another minitrack and another paper was cancelled. The minitrack consists of three papers.