Managing the Versions of a Software Product Under Variable and Endogenous Demand

Software product versioning (i.e., upgrading the product after its initial release) is a widely adopted practice followed by leading software providers such as Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM. Unlike conventional durable goods, software products are relatively easy to upgrade, making upgrades a strategic consideration in commercial software production. We consider a two-period model with a monopoly software provider who develops and releases a software product to the market. Unlike previous research, we consider demand variability and endogeneity to determine the functionality of the software in the first and second periods. Demand endogeneity is the impact of the word-of-mouth effect that positively relates the features in the initial release of the product to its demand in the second period. We also determine the design effort that should be spent in the first period to prepare for upgrading the product in the second period—upgrade design effort—to tap into the possible future demand. Results show that the u...