The Software Business

Calendar

Lec #	Topics	Key Dates
1	Course Overview and Organization	Part 1 of the video “Triumph of the Nerds” shown in class
2	Strategy for Software Companies: What to Think About	Part 2 of the video “Triumph of the Nerds”
3	How Software Became a Business	Part 3 of the video “Triumph of the Nerds” Student team 1: Best Practices for IT Services Firms
4	Microsoft® Case Study: Strategy, Management, Organization	Student Team 2: Current Standards/Platforms Battles – .NET vs. J2EE, other Paper 1 due
5	Managing Software Development: Basic Issues and Best Practices	Video from Microsoft®: Chris Peter’s on “Shipping Software” Student Team 3: Report on Different Development Experiences and Paradigms
6	Software Sales Guest Presentation: Brian Halligan, former MIT student and former VP of Sales, Groove Networks	Student Team 4: Software Sales Techniques
7	Part 1: Software Marketing Guest Presentations: Steve Kahl (MIT PhD student, former VP of Goldman Sachs; and Charles DeWitt, former MIT LFM student, former VP of Strategy and Planning, i2, current Director of Enterprise Marketing, Kronos Software) Part 2: Software Entrepreneurship	Student Team 5: Software Marketing and Pricing Techniques Student Team 7: Startup Analysis Paper 2 due
8	Open Source Guest Lecturer: Professor Alan MacCormack, Harvard Business School	Student Team 6: Analysis of For-Profit Open Source Businesses Excerpts from the video: “Revolution OS” (2002)
9	Software Business Overseas: Outsourcing and Innovation Guest Presentation – Izhar Armoney, Charles River Ventures. Specialist on Israeli software industry. MBA Wharton, currently a director of iPhrase, July Systems, Optaros, Proficiency, ThinkFire and Virtusa	Student Team 8: Pros and Cons of Outsourcing and Global Development Student Team 9: State of India Report Student Team 10: State of China Report Student Team 11: State of Israel Report Paper 3 due
10	“Emerging” Software Technologies/Companies - Paper Presentations 1
11	Wrap-Up