<p>The IT industry is characterised by rapid changes and an increased level of consolidation and competition. Hardware and software developers are moving away from proprietary technologies to open-standards based technology. This makes it more difficult for large hardware vendors, such as Hewlett Packard (HP) and IBM, to lock their customers and partners to proprietary solutions. Therefore, in order to keep and increase its market share, HP needs to improve its collaboration with partners. The partners, especially local and regional independent software vendors (ISV), are important due to their applications focused on solving business problems, their ability to provide industry relevance to HP’s products and their ability to influence what kind of hardware and software platforms the end-customers will choose.</p><p>We have identified key market characteristics, the ISVs’ key needs and challenges, as well as what they consider crucial in order for them to recommend a certain vendor’s hardware platform. Companies in the IT industry face several unique challenges; one is that there often exist conflicting interests between the different industry members, e.g. competitors collaborating with each other. This puts extra pressure on clarifying the rules of engagement between the collaborating parties. The ISVs are generally agnostic to which hardware platform the customers buy as long as their applications run on the specific platform, therefore the ISVs’ vendor preference is often based on more intangible relationship factors. Factors that affect and decide the ISVs’ preference are e.g. their existing vendor relationships, ease of doing business, clear point of contact and clear rules of engagement. Furthermore, many of the ISVs are interested in having joint- business planning and go-to-market strategies with HP. In order to leverage hardware, we recommend that HP tries to tie the ISVs to them and form closer relationships with the ISV community. (HP must however carefully evaluate the value of the individual ISVs and what they can offer.)</p><p>The recommendations consist mainly of how to select the relevant ISVs and, after the selection, how the ISVs should be categorised and managed by utilising HP’s partner portal for developers. This would enable HP to engage more efficiently with key partners, which in turn would lead to increased leverage of HP hardware.</p>

The IT industry is characterised by rapid changes and an increased level of consolidation and competition. Hardware and software developers are moving away from proprietary technologies to open-standards based technology. This makes it more difficult for large hardware vendors, such as Hewlett Packard (HP) and IBM, to lock their customers and partners to proprietary solutions. Therefore, in order to keep and increase its market share, HP needs to improve its collaboration with partners. The partners, especially local and regional independent software vendors (ISV), are important due to their applications focused on solving business problems, their ability to provide industry relevance to HP’s products and their ability to influence what kind of hardware and software platforms the end-customers will choose. We have identified key market characteristics, the ISVs’ key needs and challenges, as well as what they consider crucial in order for them to recommend a certain vendor’s hardware platform. Companies in the IT industry face several unique challenges; one is that there often exist conflicting interests between the different industry members, e.g. competitors collaborating with each other. This puts extra pressure on clarifying the rules of engagement between the collaborating parties. The ISVs are generally agnostic to which hardware platform the customers buy as long as their applications run on the specific platform, therefore the ISVs’ vendor preference is often based on more intangible relationship factors. Factors that affect and decide the ISVs’ preference are e.g. their existing vendor relationships, ease of doing business, clear point of contact and clear rules of engagement. Furthermore, many of the ISVs are interested in having joint- business planning and go-to-market strategies with HP. In order to leverage hardware, we recommend that HP tries to tie the ISVs to them and form closer relationships with the ISV community. (HP must however carefully evaluate the value of the individual ISVs and what they can offer.) The recommendations consist mainly of how to select the relevant ISVs and, after the selection, how the ISVs should be categorised and managed by utilising HP’s partner portal for developers. This would enable HP to engage more efficiently with key partners, which in turn would lead to increased leverage of HP hardware.

Web Systems are widely used and accepted due to their advantages over traditional desktop applications. Modernization of existing non-Web software towards the Web, however, is a complex and challenging task due to Legacy System characteristics. Independent Software Vendors are struggling to commence Web Migration because of the involved effort and risk. Through systematic field research and problem analysis, this situation is further analyzed, deriving a set of requirements that represent the effort and risk concerns and are used to assess the state of the art in the field. Existing Web Migration research exhibits gaps concerning dedicated approaches for the initial phase and feasibility of the proposed strategies with limited resources and expertise. This thesis proposes a solution to address the shortcomings above and support Independent Software Vendors to commence Web Migration, focusing on effort and risk. The main idea is to provide a set of dedicated solutions to close the identified gaps in the form of a methodology and a supporting toolsuite that transfer paradigms successfully solving similar problems in other areas of computer science into the Web Migration domain. These solutions constitute the proposed approach called Agile Web Migration for SMEs (AWSM), consisting of methods, tools, principles, and formalisms for reverse engineering, risk management, customer impact control, and migration strategy selection. The thesis describes the research on the devised ideas in the context of a collaboration project with an Independent Software Vendor. Applicability and feasibility of the concepts are demonstrated in several evaluation experiments, integrating empirical user studies and objective measurements. The thesis concludes with an evaluation based on requirements assessment and application of the solutions in the application scenario, and it provides an outlook towards future work.:1 Introduction 2 Requirements Analysis 3 State of the Art 4 Addressing Effort and Risk Concerns in Web Migration 5 AWSM Reverse Engineering Method 6 AWSM Risk Management Method 7 AWSM Customer Impact Control Method 8 Evaluation 9 Conclusion and Outlook / Web-basierte Software-Systeme werden weithin verwendet und akzeptiert aufgrund ihrer Vorteile gegenüber traditionellen Desktopanwendungen. Die Modernisierung von Nicht-Web-Software zu Web-Software stellt jedoch wegen der Charakteristika von Legacy-Systemen eine komplexe und herausfordernde Aufgabe dar. Unabhängigen Softwareproduzenten (Independent Software Vendors) fällt es schwer, Web Migration zu initiieren aufgrund des damit einhergehenden Aufwands und Risikos. Durch systematische Primärerhebungen und Problemanalyse wird diese Situation weitergehend untersucht und eine Reihe von Anforderungen abgeleitet, welche die Aufwands- und Riskobedenken repräsentieren und verwendet werden, um den Stand der Technik in diesem Gebiet zu bewerten. Existierende Web Migration Forschung weist Mängel hinsichtlich von dedizierten Ansätzen für die initiale Phase und der Machbarkeit der vorgeschlagenen Strategien mit begrenzten Ressourcen und begrenzter Expertise auf. Diese Dissertation schlägt eine Lösung für die oben ausgeführten Mängel vor, um unabhängige Softwareproduzenten bei der Initiierung einer Web Migration zu unterstützen, welche sich auf ihre Bedenken bezüglich des Aufwands und Risikos fokussiert. Die Grundidee ist es eine Sammlung von dedizierten Lösungen für die identifizierten Mängel in Form einer Methodologie und einer Reihe von unterstützenden Werkzeugen anzubieten, welche Paradigmen, die erfolgreich ähnliche Probleme in anderen Gebieten der Informatik lösen konnten, in die Web Migration Domäne transferieren. Diese Lösungen ergeben den vorgeschlagenen Ansatz, Agile Web Migration for SMEs (AWSM), welcher aus Methoden, Werkzeugen, Prinzipien und Formalismen für Reverse Engineering, Riskomanagement, Customer Impact Control und Migrationsstrategieauswahl bestehen. Die Dissertation beschreibt die Forschung an den im Rahmen einer Industriekooperation mit einem unabhängigen Softwareproduzenten entwickelten Ideen. Anwendbarkeit und Machbarkeit der Konzepte werden in mehreren Evaluationsexperimenten, welche empirische Nutzerstudien mit objektiven Messungen verbinden, demonstriert. Die Dissertation schließt mit einer bewertenden Evaluation basierend auf den Anforderungen und auf dem Einsatz der Lösungen im Anwendungsszenario, sowie einem Ausblick auf weiterführende Arbeiten.:1 Introduction 2 Requirements Analysis 3 State of the Art 4 Addressing Effort and Risk Concerns in Web Migration 5 AWSM Reverse Engineering Method 6 AWSM Risk Management Method 7 AWSM Customer Impact Control Method 8 Evaluation 9 Conclusion and Outlook