Leveraging collaborative innovation in SOA-based software providers networks

The software sector plays a very relevant role in the current world economy as a means to face many societal challenges, especially considering that the sector mostly consists of SMEs. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a recent ICT paradigm to help face new challenges in ICT developments and market. ICT companies should invest in innovative products and services to be sustainable, but SOA can be complex and a SOA "product" has many differences compared to manufacturing, which most innovation models are directed to. We present results of an innovation model directed at independent SMEs of SOA providers interested in innovating together, sharing costs, risks and benefits. The model is flexible so as to support the intrinsic uniqueness of innovation processes. The model is complemented with so-called functional guidelines, informing SMEs managers of the most important issues to handle during various steps of an innovation. An example of the model usage is presented, as well as the preliminary results of its evaluation by users.