Guest Editors' Introduction: Successful Software Product Line Practices

A software product line is a set of software-intensive systems sharing a common, managed set of features that satisfy the specific needs of a particular market segment or mission and that are developed from a common set of core assets in a prescribed way in place. Organizations adopting product development strategies that include a software product line have achieved impressive results, reducing product cycle time and increasing productivity by an order of magnitude. The software product line strategy is a blend of business and technical actions that lets an organization satisfy a wide range of customers, gain leverage with suppliers, meet the threats of substitute products, and deter other companies seeking to enter the market. The strategy is robust over a wide range of technologies, domains, and organizations of different structures, cultures, and goals. Service-oriented architectures, agile development methods, and open source business models have all played roles in successful product line organizations.