Software Diffusion Analysis Based on Multi-Agent Simulation

New product diffusion is a form of technological diffusion. Nowadays, Software, as a virtual product, has its own characteristics and behaviors. Once, software has the same channels along with other real goods, but with the internet´s development, software´s diffusion channels have be changed, each person can download and buy them on internet. In this paper, we used a simulation way to study software diffusion, and according to the epidemics´ idea, a multi-agent simulation model has been established to do the simulation experiments with AnyLogic, with the simulation result and sensitivity analysis, it is drawn that, it is sensitive in software diffusion process for many rates, especially the word of mouth´s impact; positive word of mouth can make more potential users change into users, and negative word of mouth affected the software´s diffusion significantly, so software enterprises should control word of mouth´s spread, especially the nonusers´ negative word of mouth´s spread.