Yoshihiro Matsumoto is Adviser of ASTEM Research Institute of Kyoto. He started his career in Toshiba Corporation in 1954, where he took initiative in the applications of software to real time control systems and in building Toshiba Software Factory for those domains. After he spent 35 years in Toshiba, he switched to academic field and served a professor at Kyoto University, Osaka Institute of Technology, and Musashi Institute of Technology. He received Dr. Eng. degree from the University of Tokyo, and Fellow in 1982/Life Fellow in 2004 both from the IEEE.

Experience of a Software Factory from Domain Preparation to Product Line Adoption,
keynote slides

A software factory project for the software application to electric power generation (EPG) in Toshiba Software Factory started its domain preparation in the beginning of 1960, developed the first product line assets from 1971 to 1976, and began to adopt the product line assets to real projects in 1976. Afterwards, the EPG product line has overcome three big generation changes, and more than 150 large EPG systems have been produced under the product line adoption. In this talk, experience especially of domain engineering and asset development will be touched.

Yoshihiro Matsumoto: A Guide for Management and Financial Controls of product Lines, Proceedings SPLC2007, Kyoto, September 10-14 (2007)
Yoshihiro Matsumoto: Essence of Toshiba Software Factory, http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~y-h-m/EssenceOfToshibaSoftwareFactory.pdf

Dr.-Ing. Martin Verlage heads the software development and technical units of vwd group, a leading service provider for financial market data in Europe that focuses on solutions for retail banking, private banking and wealth management. Martin studied Computer Science at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, and received a Diploma as well as a Ph.D. in Computer Science (Doktor der Ingenieurwissenschaften). For three years he worked as team leader of the Software Process Modelling Group of the Fraunhofer Institute of Experimental Software Engineering (IESE). In 1999 he joined market maker Software AG, a Kaiserslautern based software and service company, where he built up a new product line for intranet und internet applications. He was also responsible for research projects in software product lines. After six years he joined vwd Vereinigte Wirtschaftsdienste in Frankfurt, Germany, the major shareholder of market maker as Director Delivery Systems and Quality Management. In 2006 he became Vice Executive Director vwd group Technology, now being responsible for integrating vwd group's software development units and product platforms. Additionally, he acts as Director Technology of vwd's subsidiary FIDES Information Services, Zurich, Switzerland. Martin worked in international projects studying software product lines (e.g., ESAPS, CAFÉ, Families), published scientific conference and journal papers, continues to be member of program committees, and volunteers as reviewer for international journals.

The Invisible Man-Month
or
What is the real value of a core asset?

When motivating product line engineering, the usual suspects are lower cost, faster time-to-market, and better quality. Well-known to software engineers are the latter two, whereas development cost usually is a subject of discussion between project leaders, head of software development and upper management. And, of course, cost has to be less than the - expected - value of the software developed in a project.

This keynote pinpoints to economical phenomena when building up a product line, especially when existing software is to be replaced by flexible, configurable, and modular components. Software engineers should know at least a small portion of how software assets are represented in their company's balance sheet, because this may hinder or boost launching a new product line. Components represent value and hence building one single new component which replaces several existing ones destroys and creates value at the same time. But this is only the case, if the old components were properly accounted. Is the new component 3rd party software or is it build by the company's software development unit? Was development effort recorded and accounted? What might look like prestidigitation is in fact a serious issue when management commitment is required to build new product lines. Building up or destroying values might influence the decision when a top-notch core asset is to be created.