Software partnerships and business models: Certified solutions

The European Workshop on Software Ecosystems is an annual event which connects top notch researchers and business professionals in the field of software and platform ecosystems as well as business networks. Here is an example of a topic we will discuss at the event.

Customers are looking for minimizing their integration cost in a heterogeneous landscape of software solutions. To proof that the integration between two software solution exists and has some level of quality, software vendors are offering certification programs. Certification allows competition between software partners to keep prices low while certification increases integration quality.

The software vendor provides certification services for a certification fee and logo usage to software companies. Software companies sell their software to customers. No revenue share is paid to the software vendor.

Business Model Canvas for Certification

The value proposition contains the following values:

• Reduced development cost and time for integrating solutions since the integration already works based on the certifiable interface.

• Quality products are being integrated to avoid that customer value is destroyed by bad quality.

• Partners that get certified on an interface create value for the company that offers the interface on their solutions because the solution scope is extended by the partner products.

More details and background information can be found in these books: