Third-party developer experience: Using the platform boundary resources of a software ecosystem

Abstract

Software ecosystems are an increasingly common setting in which software organizations operate. A software ecosystem refers to a context where a keystone player, or platform owner, provides a software platform and platform boundary resources. These resources allow third-party developers to build software applications on top of the platform. These applications target end-users who selected to adopt the software platform. The relationships among the entities we introduced are the engine of a software ecosystem.

After selecting the software platform, much of the interaction the end-users have with the software ecosystem happens by selecting and using the software applications that are available in the software ecosystem. Hence, software applications play a crucial role in the success of the software ecosystem. Attracting third-party developers to build software applications is, therefore, a key issue.

In this sense, a fundamental technical concern is third-party developer experience. In fact, minimizing developer's effort is recognized as one of the key success factors; and it requires acting on the platform boundary resources. We understand this as enabling third-party development. We investigated these issues in the specific context of F-Secure's Content Anywhere (CAN) Ecosystem. We conducted a case study in a hackathon event, where F-Secure used the CAN Ecosystem.

We found out that enablement can occur to different degrees. We concluded that the minimum requirement is to ensure technical feasibility through APIs and access to basic resources, While, for example, addressing issues of learnability and abstraction levels helps to raise the degree of enablement; thus increasing the software ecosystem's attractiveness to third-party developers. Additionally, the third-party developer experience is affected by met or unmet expectations: the expectations depend on the mental model that the developer constructs,