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Intertwined Development of Business Model and Product Functions for Mobile Applications: A Twin Peak Feature Modeling Approach

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Software Business (ICSOB 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 370))

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Abstract

Mobile app stores like Apple’s AppStore or Google’s PlayStore are highly competitive markets for third-party developers wanting to develop successful applications. During the development process, many developers focus on the multitude of product functions but neglect the business model as an equally important part. As a result, developers often fail to meet customer needs, leading to unnecessary development costs and poor market penetration. This, in turn, raises the question of how we intertwine the business model and product functions during the development process to ensure a better alignment between the two.

In this paper, we show this intertwined development by adapting the concept of Twin Peaks to the business model and product functions. Based on feature modeling as an abstraction layer, we introduce the concept of a Business Model Decision Line (BMDL) to structure the business model decisions and their relation to product functions structured in a Software Product Line (SPL). The basis of our feature models is the analysis of top listed applications in the app stores of Apple and Google. To create and modify both models, we provide an incremental feature structuring and iterative feature selection process. This combination of abstraction layer and development process supports third-party developers to build successful applications both from a business and a product perspective.

This work was partially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Collaborative Research Center “On-The-Fly Computing” (CRC 901, Project Number: 160364472SFB901).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Top 25 in Free, Paid and Grossing for Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Innovation Lab, Paderborn University, Paderborn, Germany

    Sebastian Gottschalk, Florian Rittmeier & Gregor Engels

Authors
  1. Sebastian Gottschalk
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  2. Florian Rittmeier
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  3. Gregor Engels
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sebastian Gottschalk .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tampere University of Technology, Pori, Finland

    Sami Hyrynsalmi

  2. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Mari Suoranta

  3. University of South-Eastern Norway, Bø i Telemark, Norway

    Anh Nguyen-Duc

  4. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Pasi Tyrväinen

  5. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Pekka Abrahamsson

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Gottschalk, S., Rittmeier, F., Engels, G. (2019). Intertwined Development of Business Model and Product Functions for Mobile Applications: A Twin Peak Feature Modeling Approach. In: Hyrynsalmi, S., Suoranta, M., Nguyen-Duc, A., Tyrväinen, P., Abrahamsson, P. (eds) Software Business. ICSOB 2019. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 370. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33742-1_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33742-1_16

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