Software development

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"Software development" redirects here. For other uses, see Software development (disambiguation).

Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a software product.^[1][2] Software development is sometimes understood to encompass the processes of software engineering combined with the research and goals of software marketing to develop computer software products^[3]. This is in contrast to marketing software, which may or may not involve new product development. It is often difficult to isolate whether engineering or marketing is more responsible for the success or failure of a software product to satisfy customer expectations. This is why it is important to understand both processes and/or facilitate collaboration between both engineering and marketing in the total software development process. Engineering and marketing concerns are often balanced in the role of a project manager that may or may not use that title.

Marketing involvement is also known as software requirements analysis^[4]. Because software development may involve compromising or going beyond what is required by the client, a software development project may stray into processes not usually associated with engineering such as market research, human resources, risk management, intellectual property, budgeting, crisis management, etc. These processes may also cause the role of business development to overlap with software development.

In the book "Great Software Debates", Alan M. Davis states in the chapter "Requirements", subchapter "The Missing Piece of Software Development":

Students of engineering learn engineering and are rarely exposed to finance or marketing. Students of marketing learn marketing and are rarely exposed to finance or engineering. Most of us become specialists in just one area. To complicate matters, few of us meet interdisciplinary people in the workforce, so there are few roles to mimic. Yet, software product planning is critical to the development success and absolutely requires knowledge of multiple disciplines.[5]

[edit] See also

• Software developer
• Software project management
• Software development process
• Marketing strategies for product software
• Alliances between product software firms
• Software user experience design
• Software engineering economics
• System software
• Application software
• Video game development
• Web development
• Web application
• Software developer
• Software publisher
• Software company
• Software industry
• Software distribution

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Luke Hohmann. "Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions" (January 30, 2003)

• Jim McCarthy. "Dynamics of Software Development" (August 1, 1995), pp:10-30

• Robert K. Wysocki. "Effective Software Project Management" (March 27, 2006), pp:72-75

• PhD, CISM, John Rittinghouse. "Managing Software Deliverables: A Software Development Management Methodology" (November 12, 2003)

• Dan Conde. "Software Product Management: Managing Software Development from Idea to Product to Marketing to Sales" (September 1, 2002), pp:24-29

• Edward Hasted. "Software That Sells : A Practical Guide to Developing and Marketing Your Software Project" (June 10, 2005)

• A. M. Davis, "Just enough requirements management: where software development meets marketing" (May 30, 2005)

• John W. Horch, "Two Orientations On How To Work With Objects," IEEE Software, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 117-118, Mar., 1995.

• Karl E. Wiegers, "More About Software Requirements: Thorny Issues and Practical Advice" (December 20, 2005)