SWE 401T BS Fall 2023

Software Project Management

Assignment # 01
Objective:
The goal of this assignment is to simulate the real-world challenges of software project
management and provide an opportunity for students to apply and explain project management
concepts.

Question # 01:

What is the role of a software Project Manager and Program manager? Explain what skill sets they
must possess to be a good Software Project Management.

Question # 02:
Write down summary paper and presentation using case studies attached with the assignment 1.
Case Study 1 is for Roll ends with 0-1, Case Study 2 is for Roll ends with 2-3, Case Study 3 is
for Roll ends with 4-5, Case Study 4 is for Roll ends with 6-7 and Case Study 5 is for Roll ends
with 8-9.

Question # 03:
Discuss early development stage of Microsoft ©, team building and initial hurdles specially.
Also discuss difficulties and extraordinary success which they can’t even expect.

Assignment Guidelines

• At its most rudimental, each question is asking you to display a strong grasp of the
theoretical underpinning on the main topic areas or themes outlined by the title and detail
with references.
• Be careful not to spend too much of your assignment simply describing concepts, models, or
frameworks. You should wear your thinking hat and provide evidence of critically
evaluating, comparing, or contrasting and analyzing.
• You will be graded according to the amount of research you have conducted, which will be
reflected by your answers to the questions above.
• Make the file name like 2020F-BSE-XYZ- UR NAME.
• You are NOT required to submit a hard copy. Submit your assignment in USB, CR is
collecting/arranging all soft copies of assignment before one day of the submission.
• Submitting the assignment in Doc or Docx format is highly recommended.
• Cheating, copying, copy pasting of the assignment will result in penalty or deduction of marks.
• The course instructor will check plagiarism on your assignment. If your assignment has more
than 20%, plagiarism marks will be deducted. You can check your assignments for
plagiarism by using https://www.turnitin.com/ or any other online tool of your choice.
• Your assignment should be highly formatted with Headings, Table of contents and title on
figures, tables if you are going to use any of that. Your assignment will be scored according
to better presentation of your assignments.

1
 Chapter 2 / Competing with Information Technology ● 41

REAL WORLD
CASE 1 GE, Dell, Intel, and Others:
The Competitive Advantage of
Information Technology

T here’s nothing like a punchy headline to get an

arti- cle some attention. A recent piece in the
Harvard Business Review (May 2003), shockingly
labeled “IT
Doesn’t Matter,” has garnered the magazine more buzz
—that information technology
suddenly the statement is
doesn’t matter—and

than at any time since the Jack Welch affair. The article has
been approvingly cited in The New York Times, analyzed in
Wall Street reports, and e-mailed around the world. But
without such a dramatic and reckless title, I doubt the
article would have been much noticed. It’s a sloppy mix of
ersatz history, conventional wisdom, moderate insight,
and unsupportable assertions. And it is dangerously
wrong.
Author Nicholas Carr’s main point is that information
technology is nothing more than the infrastructure of modern
business, similar to railroads, electricity, or the internal
com- bustion engineering advances that have become too
common- place for any company to wangle a strategic
advantage from them. Once-innovative applications of
information technology have now become merely a
necessary cost. Thus Carr thinks today’s main risk is not
underusing IT but overspending on it. But before we get
any further, let’s have a reality check.
First, let’s ask Jeff Immelt, the CEO of General Electric
Co., one of the premier business corporations in the
world, this question: “How important is information
technology to GE?” Here’s his answer: “It’s a business
imperative. We’re primarily a service-oriented company, and
the lifeblood for productivity is more about tech than it is
about investing in plants and equip- ment. We tend to get a 20
percent return on tech investments, and we tend to invest
about $2.5 billion to $3 billion a year.”
Then let’s ask Dell Corporation CEO, Michael Dell:
“What’s your take on Nick Carr’s thesis that technology no
longer gives corporate buyers a competitive advantage?”
Here’s his answer: “Just about anything in business can be
either a sinkhole or a competitive advantage if you do it
really, really bad or you do it really, really well. And
information technology is an often misunderstood field.
You’ve got a lot of people who don’t know what they’re doing
and don’t do it very well. For us, IT is a huge advantage. For
Wal-Mart, GE, and many other companies, technology is a
huge advantage and will continue to be. Does that mean
that you just pour money in and gold comes out? No, you
can screw it up really bad.”
Finally, let’s ask Andy Grove, former CEO and now
Chairman of Intel Corporation, a direct question about IT:
“Nicholas Carr’s recent Harvard Business Review article says:
‘IT Doesn’t Matter.’ Is information technology so pervasive
that it no longer offers companies a competitive advantage?”
Andy says: “In any field, you can find segments that are
close to maturation and draw a conclusion that the field is
homo- geneous. Carr is saying commercial-transaction
processing in the United States and some parts of Europe
has reached the top parts of an S-curve. But instead of
talking about that segment, he put a provocative spin on it
 grossly wrong. It couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s like
saying: I have an old three-speed bike, and Lance Armstrong
has a bike. So why should he have a competitive
advantage?” So, basically, Carr misunderstands what
information technology is. He thinks it’s merely a bunch of
networks and computers. He notes, properly, that the
price of those has plummeted and that companies bought
way too much in re- cent years. He’s also right that the
hardware infrastructure of business is rapidly becoming
commoditized and, even more important, standardized.
Computers and networks per se are just infrastructure.
However, one of the article’s most glaring flaws is its
complete disregard for the centrality of software and the
fact that human knowledge or information can be
mediated and managed by software.
Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft’s general manager for
plat- form strategy, says that Carr doesn’t put enough
emphasis on the “I” in IT. “The source of competitive
advantage in busi- ness is what you do with the
information that technology gives you access to. How do
you apply that to some particu- lar business problem? To
say IT doesn’t matter is tanta- mount to saying that
companies have enough information about their
operations, customers, and employees. I have never
heard a company make such a claim.”
Paul Strassman who has spent 42 years as a CIO—at
General Foods, Xerox, the Pentagon, and most recently
NASA—was more emphatic. “The hardware—the stuff
everybody’s fascinated with—isn’t worth a damn,” he
says. “It’s just disposable. Information technology today
is a knowledge-capital issue. It’s basically a huge amount
of labor and software.” Says he: “Look at the business
powers—most of all Wal-Mart, but also companies like
Pfizer or FedEx. They’re all waging information warfare.”

Case Study Questions

1. Do you agree with the argument made by Nick Carr
to support his position that IT no longer gives
companies a competitive advantage? Why or why
not?
2. Do you agree with the argument made by the business
leaders in this case in support of the competitive
advan- tage that IT can provide to a business? Why or
why not?
3. What are several ways that IT could provide a
competi- tive advantage to a business? Use some of
the companies mentioned in this case as examples.
Visit their websites to gather more information to
help you answer.

Source: Adapted from David Kirkpatrick, “Stupid-Journal Alert:

Why HBR’s View of Tech Is Dangerous,” Fortune, June 9, 2003,
p. 190; Robert Hoff, “Andy Grove: We Can’t Even Glimpse the
Potential,” BusinessWeek, August 25, 2003, pp. 86–88; and
“Speak- ing Out: View from the Top,” BusinessWeek, August 25,
2003,
pp. 108–13.
 Chapter 1 / Foundations of Information Systems in Business ● 23

REAL WORLD
Lufthansa: Taking Mobile Computing

H
CASE 2
to the Skies While Keeping the
Mobile Workforce Connected
ow do you keep 3,500 highly mobile airline pilots new aircraft or things like specific hydraulic systems.”
trained on the latest technology and procedures; Lufthansa also plans
plugged into the corporate infrastructure; and in-
formed about schedules, weather events, and other facts
that affect their jobs throughout the world? What’s more,
how do you accomplish this while controlling costs?
In 2001, Lufthansa launched the “Lufthansa Mobile Ini-
tiative,” which aimed to provide all pilots with notebook
com- puters. Lufthansa knew that the benefits of mobile
computers would translate into major gains for the
company as a whole.
The Lufthansa Mobile Initiative is yielding significant
productivity and efficiency improvements, while keeping
costs manageable.
The successes being realized today were not without
sig- nificant challenges. Lufthansa had strict parameters that
note- book PCs needed to meet before the pilots’ union
would sign off on the plan. Chief among the
requirements were: The notebooks had to have enough
performance capability to run key software applications
used by the pilots, the notebooks had to weigh less than 2
kilograms (about 4.4 pounds), their screens had be at least
12 inches diagonally as well as be bright and easy to read
due to lighting conditions in the cockpit, and battery life
had to be at least five hours for long airplane trips. For the
early tests of the project in 1998, Lufthansa de- cided to
purchase mobile systems based on the low-voltage Mobile
Intel® Pentium® III Processor–M operating at
600MHz, with 128MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive.
Today, Lufthansa pilots enjoy state-of-the-art notebook
PCs with several times the power and performance of the
early Pentium III platforms while weighing in at less than
3.5 pounds.
So far, the payoff from mobile computing at Lufthansa
has been significant. Giving notebooks to pilots provided
the company with several key tangible and intangible
benefits:

• Pilots are more productive because they can

access updated data electronically.
• They are more productive because they can work in a
variety of locations including airplanes, airports, hotels,
and other remote locations.
• Pilots appreciate the convenience of not having to
carry heavy manuals and documentation to multiple
locations.
• Pilots can take their required training on their
laptops during downtime in any airport.
In fact, now that all of Lufthansa’s pilots have laptops,
Lufthansa no longer conducts classroom training. “Such
training used to mean preparing training centers,
arranging a time when pilots could attend the sessions,
and actually getting the pilots to the training location,”
recalls Rolf Mueller, project manager for the Lufthansa
Mobile Initia- tive. “Now pilots use their notebooks for
computer-based training whether they are learning about
to phase out the desktop computers that it had previously
de- ployed in airports, thereby streamlining its
infrastructure and cutting even more costs.
Helping Lufthansa even further is the fact that the
total cost of ownership for notebooks has decreased
significantly over the last several years. Capital costs are
lower. End user operations and technical support costs
are decreasing due to improved manageability and
stability. “We’ve been quite happy with Windows XP,”
says Grabbe. “Not only is it sta- ble, but it’s flexible and
gives us an environment that is easy to update and keep
current. Overall, the total cost of owner- ship is quite low
because of our system of browser-based components
and a sophisticated update network.”
Mobile computing is catching on throughout the
Lufthansa Group. Rolf Mueller says that in addition to
Lufthansa Cargo, he has been talking to Lufthansa
CityLine, the company’s short-haul passenger line that
serves Europe. “We’re really leading the way in using
mobile computers. Lufthansa CityLine will end up with
800 of its own note- books for flight captains.”
And the Mobile Initiative at Lufthansa extends beyond
the company’s crew. Lufthansa understands fully the
needs of mobile workers, including its own customers.
The airline is testing a new FlyNet project that will
give passengers in-flight access to the Internet.
As it moves forward, Lufthansa can point to a litany of
benefits when describing its mobile computer program.
“Most of all, pilots work when they can,” says Rolf
Mueller. “Whether they are on their way to the airport,
waiting dur- ing a layover, or away from work.”
Lufthansa regards their mobile computing initiative
to be extremely successful based on their high return on
invest- ment (ROI). By deploying mobile PCs to all their
pilots they have realized significant productivity benefits
while effec- tively managing costs.

Case Study Questions

1. Are many of Lufthansa’s challenges identified in the
case similar to those being experienced by other
busi- nesses in today’s global economy? Explain and
provide some examples.
2. What other tangible and intangible benefits,
beyond those identified by Lufthansa, might a
mobile work- force enjoy as a result of deploying
mobile technolo- gies? Explain.
3. Lufthansa was clearly taking a big risk with their
deci- sion to deploy notebook computers to their
pilots. What steps did they take to manage that risk
and what others might be needed in today’s
business environ- ment? Provide some examples.
Source: Adapted from Intel Corporation, “Lufthansa Mobile Com-
puting Case Study, 2002.” © Intel Corporation, 2002.
 Chapter 1 / Foundations of Information Systems in Business ● 37

REAL WORLD

J
CASE 3 Aviall Inc.: From Failure to Success
with Information Technology
oseph Lacik, Jr., doesn’t try to measure the return on in- Of course, even with planning, some of the systems in-
vestment of his company’s e-business website. The fact tegration was more difficult than expected. One major rea-
that Dallas-based Aviall Inc. (www.aviall.com) was saved son was the sheer size of the project. The new combined
from financial disaster by a controversial multimillion-dollar system has to properly access and deal with customized
IT project that included developing the website as one key pricing charts for 17,000 customers who receive various
element is all the return he needs to see. That investment, types of discounts, and it has to deal with an inventory of
in the words of Larry DeBoever, chief strategy officer at 380,000 different aerospace parts.
the IT consulting firm Experio Solutions Corp. in Dallas, The development of Aviall.com was one of the least ex-
“turned Aviall from a catalog business into a full-scale pensive parts of the project, at a cost of about $3 million,
logistics busi- ness” that hundreds of aviation parts Lacik says. But it provides big benefits. When customers
manufacturers and airlines large and small depend on for or- der products on the Aviall website, it costs the
ordering, inventory control, and demand forecasting. He company about 39 cents per order, compared with $9 per
says the new approach ties Aviall more tightly to transaction if an Aviall employee takes the order over the
customers such as Rolls-Royce PLC. “Aviall is now the phone. New supply chain functions are also possible, such
logistics back end for the aviation firms,” says DeBoever, as the ability for customers to transfer their orders from
whose company was retained to help with portions of an Excel spread- sheet directly to the website. Customers
Aviall’s systems integration work. “And they did it even can also receive price and availability information on
though the airline industry shrank over the last aerospace parts in less than five seconds—a real-time
three years.” feature that hadn’t been avail- able before the BroadVision
In early 2000, with quarterly sales dropping and Aviall system was installed, Lacik says. The process also frees
on the ropes, “We invested $30 million to $40 million to the company’s sales force from routine order taking and
build this infrastructure,” says Lacik, vice president of in- follow-up, thus allowing them to spend more time
formation services at Aviall Services, a unit of Aviall. “Our developing relationships with customers. What’s more,
competitors thought we were insane. Some investors asked the website helps Aviall build relationships with
for my resignation.” But the results of the project have suppliers by providing them with customer ordering data
been extremely successful and represent a huge comeback that enables them to better match production with
from Aviall’s recent business/IT problems, which sprang demand. The website now generates $60 million of the
from a failed enterprise resource planning (ERP) system company’s $800 million in annual revenue, or 7.5 percent,
that had been designed to automate and integrate the up from less than 2 percent a year ago. “Over the next three
company’s order processing, inventory control, financial to five years, it could become more than 30 percent.”
accounting, and human resources business systems. How- Lacik says.
ever, there were major problems in implementing the new
ERP system that resulted in Aviall’s inventory getting out Case Study Questions
of control.
Lacik joined the company in early 2000. “You couldn’t 1. Why do you think that Aviall failed in their implemen-
properly order or ship things. My job was to bring back tation of an enterprise resource planning system?
operational stability,” he says. To do so, he implemented What could they have done differently?
the CEO’s vision of transforming Aviall into a provider of 2. How has information technology brought new
supply chain management services through the integration business success to Aviall? How did IT change Aviall’s
of a range of Web-enabled e-business software systems. business model?
Aviall bought and installed a BroadVision online
purchasing system, Siebel Systems sales force automation 3. How could other companies use Aviall’s approach to
and order en- try software, a Lawson Software financial the use of IT to improve their business success? Give
system, a Catalyst Manufacturing Services inventory several examples.
control and warehouse management system, and Xelus
product allocation, inven- tory management, and Source: Adapted from Steve Alexander, “Website Adds Inventory
Control and Forecasting,” Computerworld, February 24, 2003,
purchasing forecasting software. All of these systems were p. 45. Copyright © 2003 by Computerworld, Inc., Framingham,
integrated by using common business databases managed MA 01701. All rights reserved.
by database software from Sybase, Inc.
 Chapter 2 / Competing with Information Technology ● 65

REAL WORLD
CASE 4 CDW and Harrah’s Entertainment:
Developing Strategic Customer-
Loyalty Systems

C ustomer satisfaction is good, but customer loyalty

is even better. “A satisfied customer is one who
sees you as meeting expectations,” says John
Samuels, a
senior manager in the marketing department at CDW
of truly loyal customers increase.”

Corp., (www.cdw.com), a direct marketer of more than

50,000 hard- ware and software products, with net sales of
$4.3 billion. “A loyal customer, on the other hand, wants to
do business with you again and will recommend you to
others.”
CRM packages may help measure satisfaction, but not
all of them can be used to benchmark loyalty, and the link
is tenuous. A good loyalty program, according to Bob
Chatham, an analyst at Forrester Research, Inc., in
Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, combines customer feedback
and business informa- tion with sophisticated analytics to
produce actionable re- sults. This is why IT has to take the
lead in loyalty. “IT is just about the only department that
can coordinate among busi- ness processes, vendors of
data analysis software and ser- vices, and the executives
who can translate output into action,” says Chatham.
Five years ago, CDW started working with Walker In-
formation, Inc., a 64-year-old market research firm in Indi-
anapolis that focuses on customer loyalty, to gather
customer experience data. “Initially, these were phone
surveys with cy- cle times of two months that were used to
generate reports,” says Samuels. Then CDW replaced the
phone surveys with Walker’s SmartLoyalty service, which
includes an e-mail so- licitation that directs willing
customers to a website that Walker co-hosts with CDW. It
dramatically reduced survey cycle times, and some reports
are even generated in real time. “It’s not that difficult to do
Web surveys,” says Harry Watkins, a research director
at Aberdeen Group, Inc., in Boston. “Walker’s real value is
that they have built validated, multivariate measures of
loyalty into their software. As an ASP, Walker also acts as
a consultant, helping companies de-
termine the causal variables that determine loyalty.”
SmartLoyalty divides customers into four “buckets,” or
categories, commonly used for analyzing customer loyalty.
CDW compared a customer’s purchasing behavior with his
bucket and then in further testing saw that all the buckets
lined up very well with customers’ behavior. “In other words,”
says Samuels, “we proved that the software-generated
model was very predictive.”
In response, executives sought sales improvements.
For example, the model told them that customers wanted
more out of the website and from account managers. So
CDW’s CEO directed the CIO to develop a response plan,
which led to a new search engine and a website that delivers
more prod- uct information. “And now our account
managers are trained to provide more than just ‘speeds
and feeds,’ ” says Samuels. “For example, they are trained
in areas such as security and disaster recovery.” These
changes are paying off, he says, adding, “Each year that
we have used SmartLoyalty, we have seen the percentage
 At Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. (www.harrahs.com),
in Las Vegas, CIO Tim Stanley says focusing on loyalty has
helped push the casino chain’s numbers in the right
direction. In 1997, Harrah’s launched a new IT-driven
loyalty program that pulled all customer data into a
centralized data ware- house and provided sophisticated
data mining analytics. “We wanted to better understand
the value of the investments we make in our customers,”
says Stanley. But this analysis came at a price. “Back then,
we used Informix running on NCR for both our
operational and analytic systems,” he explains. “When we
converted to the centralized warehouse, the ana- lytic
system was a real dog, far too slow.” So in 1999, Stanley
offloaded the analytics to Teradata, the NCR Corp.
database designed for large data sets and parallel
architectures. “And the performance improvement was
stunning,” he says. Har- rah’s now does near-real-time
analysis: As customers interact with slot machines, check
into casinos, or buy meals, they receive reward offers
based on the predictive analyses.
The data revealed other trends as well. For example,
Stanley says Harrah’s previously focused mostly on high
rollers. But as executives further studied the analyses and
re- ports, they realized that the person who visits a
casino once or twice a week and spends modestly is a
great investment. “This was a big ‘Aha!’ for us,” Stanley
says. The result was a new rewards program tailored to
low rollers. “We have seen consistent growth in revenue
and profits every quarter since 1999, when we
implemented the new loyalty program,” says Stanley. “By
cross-correlating questionnaire analysis with our
revenue numbers, we estimate a steady 60 percent ROI
year after year on our investment in customer loyalty.”
When CDW began using SmartLoyalty, Samuels al-
ready had a rich source of market research reports. “The
problem was that all this information was on thousands of
sheets of paper, and there was no way to get it quickly to
the right decision makers,” he explains. That’s where IT
closes the loop. Aberdeen’s Watkins puts it this way:
“With good customer loyalty technology, IT can wire the
voice of the customer back into the enterprise.”

Case Study Questions

1. Does CDW’s customer loyalty program give them
a competitive advantage? Why or why not?
2. What is the strategic value of Harrah’s approach
to determining and rewarding customer loyalty?
3. What else could CDW and Harrah’s do to truly be-
come customer-focused businesses? Visit their
websites to help you suggest several alternatives.

Source: Adapted from Mark Leon, “Catering to True-Blue Cus-

tomers,” Computerworld, August 11, 2003, p. 37. Copyright ©
2003 by Computerworld, Inc., Framingham, MA 01701. All rights
reserved.
64 ● Module I / Foundation Concepts Lien explains the Avalanche mission: “We want to take the
friction out of collaboration,” he says. “We are all under
tremendous cost pressure to save money, and through
Avalanche we can save each other money.”
“Software cooperatives are a great idea,” says Bob Lewis,
president of IT Catalysts Inc., a consulting firm in Eden
Prairie, Minnesota. “I’m surprised that it took so long to happen.
It really legitimizes the open-source model.”
Lien says the co-op model is similar to that of opensource
but takes the concept further. “This is the next level
n July 2001, Andrew Black and Scott R. Lien were having a
beyond open-source,” he explains. “With open-source, there is
drink after work and commiserating about the high cost of
too much risk. You are stuck maintaining and supporting
software and intellectual property development. Lien, then vice
anything you develop. That can get resource intensive.” With
president of information services for customer-facing systems
Avalanche, Lien says, the co-op becomes responsible for the
at Best Buy Inc., had just been burned by a vendor that decided
asset and also ensures that there’s a clear title so member
to take its software in a different direc-
companies can’t be sued later. “It is great for the donating
tion—leaving Lien high and dry for future updates. He and companies,” he says. “The larger the installation base, the
Black, CIO at Jostens Inc., knew from years of experience that lower the cost of ongoing maintenance.”
they were both purchasing the same software and coding the John Schmidt, vice president of integration at Best
same integration functions. They decided there had to be a Buy, echoes that idea. “It’s easy to informally collaborate with
better way.
just one or two developers; companies do it all the time. But
In yet another after-work conversation, they enlisted the
beyond
help of Elmer Baldwin, CEO of consulting firm, Born
that, you begin to run into risks,” he says. For example, Best
Information Services Inc. The plan: Form a member
Buy was using an open-source framework available at
organization to share resources such as software, utilities, and
www.openadaptor.org, but the original developers stopped
IT planning tools.
supporting it, leaving Schmidt hanging. Later, when Best Buy
“Initially,” Baldwin said, “I thought they were nuts!” But
developed its own framework for coding integration adapters,
he took on the project, began to investigate, and soon was
the company donated it to Avalanche.
hearing a litany of complaints from CIOs about the cost of
The charter members of Avalanche are Jostens, a provider
duplicated development efforts.
of affiliation products such as yearbooks; ePredix Inc., an
Meanwhile, Baldwin, Black, and Lien met monthly. They
employee assessment firm, where Lien is now CIO; Born
hired Minneapolis-based Dorsey & Whitney LLP to work
Information Services; and Integral Business Solutions. All four
through the legal issues, consulted with prospective
are based in the Minneapolis area. As technology service
members, and developed a business charter. Last fall, they
providers, Born and Integral are obligated to donate services in
formalized the structure as Avalanche Technology Corp., a for-
addition to paying the membership fee.
profit Minneapolis-based cooperative, and hired Jay Hansen,
Hansen says that competition among members shouldn’t be
formerly general manager of Asia-Pacific operations at Retek
an issue because the shared assets don’t bring competitive
Inc., as CEO.
advantage. “We fully expect competing companies to join and
Companies pay $30,000 a year for an Avalanche
share,” he says. But he acknowledges that getting members to
membership, which entitles them to use any of the intellectual
really collaborate is a challenge.
property that has been donated to the cooperative by other
Baldwin agrees. “We are looking for more than just
members. Members log onto www.avalanche.coop, where they
money,” he says. “We want member companies to get
can review and download intellectual property or upload
involved, to participate.” They hope member companies will
property they wish to donate. donate intellectual property, cooperate in adapting it for
Intellectual property assets can be integration applets,
other companies, help troubleshoot problems and form
application add-ons, best-practice documentation, templates,
subgroups to develop needed niche software for the library.
project plans, user interfaces, software coding, or
As of June 2004, a discussion board on the Avalanche site
schemas. “Anything that makes it easier to implement
had been discontinued because of underuse, but Schmidt is still
software,” Baldwin says. “The financial models project a 20
optimistic. “Six months from now, the site will be very active,”
percent to 40 percent decrease in the total cost of ownership of
he says. “The idea hasn’t been proven yet. It’s a leap of faith.
software at member companies,” he adds.
But I think it will work.”
Case Study Questions
1. Organizations are constantly striving to achieve
competitive advantage, often through their information
technologies. Given this constant, why does Hansen
suggest that competition among members shouldn’t be an
issue because the shared assets don’t bring competitive
advantage? Explain.
2. What do you see as the potential risks associated with the
Avalanche approach? Provide some examples.
3. How could other companies apply the cooperative model
used by Avalanche to achieve efficiencies in areas other
than software support? Explain.
Source: Adapted from C. J. Rhoads, “Shareware Grows Up,”
Computerworld, July, 5, 2004. Copyright © 2004 by Computerworld,
Inc., Framingham, MA 01701. All rights reserved.