Introduction to Software Product Lines: Engineering, Services, and Management Minitrack

Software has become the key asset for competitive products and services in all industries. Thus, competiti¬veness in software development, maintenance, and related ser¬vices has become a concern for organiza¬tions. Competitiveness can be increased through (1) internal strategies such as the strategic crea¬tion and reuse of softwa¬re assets and (2) external strategies such as outsourcing software de¬velopment, 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.