Commercial Software Vendors Research Articles

Summary of Second Aerodynamics Prediction Workshop (APC-II)

Summary of Second Aerodynamics Prediction Challenge (APC-II) is presented. The APC-II is a domestic CFD prediction workshop that was held on July 6, 2016. The test cases include aerodynamic prediction of NASA-CRM with and without support effects, and buffet prediction. We compare the CFD results with JAXA's wind tunnel measurements. There are 9 participants from national research agency, academia, industry, and commercial software vendor. The CFD results submitted from the participants are compared and discussed in the presentation.

Generating Value Through Open Source: Software Service Market Regulation and Licensing Policy

In the software industry, commercial open-source software vendors have recognized that providing services to help businesses derive greater value in the implementation of open source–based systems can be a profitable business model. Moreover, society may greatly benefit when software originators choose an open-source development strategy as their products become widely available, readily customizable, and open to community contributions. In this study, we present an economic model to study how software licensing attributes affect a software originator’s decisions, aiming to provide policy makers with insights into how welfare-improving, open-source outcomes can be incentivized. We show that when a competing contributor is apt at reaping the benefits of software development investment, a less restrictive open source license (e.g., Berkeley Software Distribution, or BSD style) can improve welfare. On the other hand, when the originator is better at leveraging investment and service costs are high, a more restrictive license (e.g., General Public License, or GPL style) can be best for social welfare even when a contributor can cost-efficiently develop the software. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2017.0726 .

REVERSE ENGINEERING AND VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS IN CYBER SECURITY

Most of the incidents response environment and computer forensics investigations cannot be successful accurately or thoroughly without understanding the runtime nature of a binary. Hackers increasingly use customized Trojans that are not detected by any antivirus which can only be analyzed and traced back to the original attacker via reverse engineering. Sometime, many executable programs contain vulnerabilities, such as use of very weak cryptographic algorithms and the buffer overflows. The most useful way to discover these extreme critical vulnerabilities for binary closed-source programs is to reverse engineer them. Reverse engineering is required in order to understand and define complex binary obfuscation schemes used by copy protection vendors, as well as obfuscation put in place by commercial software vendors. In some different cases Vulnerability Analysis may be the ambition of the test to validate mitigation is in place and the vulnerability is not accessible; while in other mode the ambition maybe to test every applicable variable with authenticated access in an effort to discover all applicable vulnerabilities. Testing may be to find all the vulnerabilities on a hosting system; while in other factors we may need to find all the vulnerabilities on hosts within a given boundary or inventory. Vulnerability analysis performs according to the threat level of a system detected by the penetration testing.

Computer numerical control machine tool information reusability within virtual machining systems

Virtual machining allows simulation of the machining process by realistically representing kinematic, static and dynamic behaviour of the intended machine tools. Using this method, manufacturing-related issues can be brought to light and corrected before the product is physically manufactured. Machining systems utilised in the manufacturing processes are represented in the virtual machining environment, and there is a plethora of commercial virtual machining software used in the industry. Each software system has a different focus and approach towards virtual machining; more than one system may be needed to complete machining verification. Thus, the significant increase in the use of virtual machining systems in the industry has increased the need for information reusability. Substantial time and money has been put into the research of virtual machining systems. However, very little of this research has been deployed within industrial best practice, and its acceptance by the end user remains unclear. This article reviews current research trends in the domain of virtual machining and also discusses how much of this research has been taken on board by software vendors in order to facilitate machine tool information reusability. The authors present use cases which utilise the novel concept of machining capability profile and the emerging STEP-NC compliant process planning framework for resource allocation. The use cases clearly demonstrate the benefits of using a neutral file format for representing machining capability profiles, as opposed to remodelling and/or reconfiguring of this information multiple times for different scenarios. This article has shown through the use cases that machining capability profiles are critical for representing recourse information from a kinematic, static and dynamic perspective that commercial software vendors can subsequently use. The impact of this on mainstream manufacturing industry is potentially significant as it will enable a true realisation of interoperability.

Open source ERP - a change maker in emerging countries

Open source software, considered a disruptive force in the software industry, is not only enabling innovations by users but is also providing low-cost solutions compared to the commercial software vendors, especially for the cash strapped SMEs from the emerging countries. Compared to traditional ERP systems which were generally complex, the open source model is easy to integrate and implement. Globalisation, changing regulations and technological innovations and zero license cost have fuelled the growth of open source ERP solutions. Moreover, it is a business model which is highly adaptable to small and medium level organisations needs, but at the same time, it faces its unique set of problems for implementation. This case presents how Apagen Solutions has emerged as open source ERP service provider in some of the emerging markets like India, Nigeria and Malaysia. The case details the benefits and challenges of open source software implementation, especially in emerging markets in Asia and the African continents.

The mzIdentML Data Standard for Mass Spectrometry-Based Proteomics Results

We report the release of mzIdentML, an exchange standard for peptide and protein identification data, designed by the Proteomics Standards Initiative. The format was developed by the Proteomics Standards Initiative in collaboration with instrument and software vendors, and the developers of the major open-source projects in proteomics. Software implementations have been developed to enable conversion from most popular proprietary and open-source formats, and mzIdentML will soon be supported by the major public repositories. These developments enable proteomics scientists to start working with the standard for exchanging and publishing data sets in support of publications and they provide a stable platform for bioinformatics groups and commercial software vendors to work with a single file format for identification data.

Predicting OSS Development Success

Open Source Software (OSS) has reached new levels of sophistication and acceptance by users and commercial software vendors. This research creates tests and validates a model for predicting successful development of OSS projects. Widely available archival data was used for OSS projects from Sourceforge.net. The data is analyzed with multiple Data Mining techniques. Initially three competing models are created using Logistic Regression, Decision Trees and Neural Networks. These models are compared for precision and are refined in several phases. Text Mining is used to create new variables that improve the predictive power of the models. The final model is chosen based on best fit to separate training and validation data sets and the ability to explain the relationship among variables. Model robustness is determined by testing it on a new dataset extracted from the SF repository. The results indicate that end-user involvement, project age, functionality, usage, project management techniques, project type and team communication methods have a significant impact on the development of OSS projects.

‘Trust me, I'm a computer’ – Trusted Computing and the law between liability and responsibility

This paper argues that commercial service providers and software vendors enjoy the biggest commercial benefits of the internet and therefore giving them the onus to create a secure internet seems an equitable suggestion, keenly taken on by some governments. Trusted Computing (TC) can be seen as a first response to this insight where software companies take on the responsibility for the internet infrastructure. The question remains whether the focus on cybercrime is potentially misleading, with some of the most serious legal issues for the new technology arising in the field of cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare where ‘too secure’ structures can hinder the efforts of the very same governments that otherwise promote online security. Anomalies and problems like these are expressions of a more fundamental paradigmatic shift of power and responsibility away from governments to the private sector, a shift that needs a much more fundamental adjustment of legal rules and regulations than commonly anticipated.

Passport Without A Visa: Open Source Software Licensing and Trademarks

Open source software has defied its sceptics and become a big business. Governments at the national, state and local level across the globe are requiring open source in their projects. Almost all major commercial software vendors use or distribute code under some open source license. As a user, it's hard to go a day on the web without interacting with some open source code which has replaced many server side legacy products. Worldwide more than 350 million consumers use open source software products and thousands of enterprises use open source code1.The best known open source brand is still probably the Linux operating system, but as open source projects and companies proliferate, the importance of brands to differentiate these offerings is on the rise. Trademarks, the legal rights that form the foundation for brand identity, will necessarily play a larger role in the open source world.

Adoption, Improvement, and Disruption

This article develops a model of open source disruption in enterprise software markets. It addresses the question: Is free and open source software (FOSS) likely to disrupt markets for commercial enterprise software? The conventional wisdom is that open source provision works best for low-level system-oriented technologies, while large, complex enterprise business applications are best served by commercial software vendors. The authors challenge the conventional wisdom by developing a two-stage model of open source disruption in enterprise software markets that emphasizes a virtuous cycle of adoption and lead-user improvement of the software. The two stages are an initial incubation stage (the I-Stage) and a subsequent snowball stage (the S-Stage). Case studies of several FOSS projects demonstrate the model’s ex post predictive value. The authors then apply the model to SugarCRM, an emerging open source CRM application, to make ex ante predictions regarding its potential to disrupt commercial CRM incumbents.

Back-propagation of user innovations: The open source compatibility edge

Open source software (OSS) is a dramatically disruptive force in the software industry. While businesses see OSS succeeding, many of them have trouble gleaning the lessons that can be learned from the OSS phenomenon, since OSS development appears to be far removed from traditional business practices and principles. A major observation resulting from our research on OSS products is that OSS product development is not only enabling innovations by its users, but also providing a structure for them to back-propagate into OSS products, a process that enhances compatibility in OSS products and presents a low-cost solution to the more general problem of servicing highly segmented markets. We argue that this innovation management process carries important insights for both commercial software vendors and companies outside the software industry.

Privacy and security as ideology

Privacy and data protection are among the prime problems of the information society. The terms privacy and security promotes a particular ideology and uses the ethical recognition of the concepts to limit critical discourses. This article uses a critical approach in the tradition of critical theory and its developments in critical research in information systems (CRIS) to expose and overcome these discursive closures. The author begins with a review of the literature on privacy and security, which will support the contention that these are ethical concepts. The concept of ideology and critical research is discussed. This will lead to a critical discourse analysis of a text from a commercial software vendor, which will provide empirical evidence of the ideological use of the terms privacy and security

National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS)

The absence of emergency medical services (EMS) patient care data has hindered development andevaluation of EMS systems. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in cooperation with the Health Resources andServices Administration (HRSA), has provided funding to the National Association of State EMS Directors to develop a National EMS Information System (NEMSIS). NEMSIS is being designed to provide a uniform national EMS dataset, with standard terms, definitions, andvalues, as well as a national EMS database, with aggregated data from all states on a limited number of data elements. Forty-eight of the states, the District of Columbia, andthree territories signed a memorandum of agreement documenting support for the NEMSIS project andexpressing a desire for full implementation of the NEMSIS dataset. NHTSA has agreed to house the National EMS Database at its National Center for Statistics andAnalysis. NHTSA, in cooperation with HRSA andthe Centers for Disease Control andPrevention, recently entered into a cooperative agreement with the University of Utah School of Medicine to operate a NEMSIS Technical Assistance Center that will provide related assistance to official EMS agencies andto commercial software vendors. The Technical Assistance Center will also biannually assess state andterritorial capabilities to provide data to the national EMS database. NEMSIS will provide a uniform national EMS dataset, with standard terms, definitions, andvalues, as well as a national EMS database, with aggregated data from all states on a limited number of data elements. Many of the potential benefits of implementation of NEMSIS are enumerated in this report.

Why managers use executive support systems:

Software technology designed to provide managers with the capability to access internal and external information that is relevant to decision making and other managerial responsibilities is referred to as executive support systems. Reports the findings of a study conducted among managers in major US corporations regarding the use of executive support systems including specific products, features, and the strategic impact of using this technology. In addition, interviews were conducted among executive support systems commercial software vendors and data obtained from these interviews are presented in tabular form. Finally, discusses the future of the utilization of executive support systems for strategic advantage.