Four Watch Software Services Liu Xing (reprinted from Software Engineering Expert Network www.21cmm.com) software service is the "bottleneck" of China's software industry development, which probably has become a consensus inside and outside the industry. However, how to understand Chinese software services in depth, it seems not a problem that is easy to crack. The author believes that this may be due to the service of the software, on the software company's talks, as well as the service of the software industry. Ancient poem: "Do not know the true face of Lushan, only in this mountain." We know China's software service, "Lushan" in software, software companies and software industries should also be jumped out, standing at a higher attitude, with an updated perspective Looking back and watching the software service, there may be new gains, and it is also possible to see the "true face" of the software service. From the market, the software service is in the long history of history, the market invisible hand uses the continuous deepening social division of labor, guided the social resources optimization configuration through the transaction, and realizes the rapid value of social wealth. It can therefore be said that division of labor is an accelerator for social development. Through the division of labor, it has achieved transformation from agricultural society to the industrial society. Similarly, today's transformation from industrial society must be achieved by division of labor, it is not difficult to see that software industry and software services are the results of social division of labor. Compared with traditional industries, the professional division of software services in software industry and software services are much more primitive, because there is only sixty years of history, while software forming industries, even in developed countries, only two or thirty years, As for the history of software services, it is shorter. In my country, the software formation industry is in recent years. As for the software service, it may still be the Wushan god in the morning, and has not opened the mysterious veil. Therefore, my country's software industry, especially software services are in a fairly naive stage, with a large gap compared to software industries such as developed countries in the United States. Now, only these gaps are found, and analyze it to know it, they can clearly develop the direction, so that they are mature. The main mark of the US software industry tends to mature is that the professional division of labor is getting worse, and its professionalization is getting higher and higher. All companies have their own accurate professional positioning, such as Microsoft's operating system, Oracle's database, Yahoo! Portal, etc. At present, my country's software companies are also moving towards this direction, such as the financial software of the user, the northern part of the original typography system, Jinshan's office software, etc. However, in the field of software service, there is still a lot of blank zones, and only a few examples will explain the problem. There is a business in the United States, called software negotiation company, which only act as an intermediary role. A company wants to buy software products or engage in software project development, first go to the software negotiation company. The software negotiation company will recommend the most suitable software products or software developers. Software developers will also find software negotiation companies. After investigation and evaluation, the software negotiation company will recommend the company to the appropriate user. We know that most software products have very strong professionalism, and users' demand is more different. The two sides are often "people in the sea, and they are difficult to say". In our country, a company is going to build a software project, often entrusting all things, including design, development, supervision, etc. to a software company. In the United States, it is not the case. The company is more software project. It must first entrust a professional institution to engage in system analysis design, which is submitted to the owner. In general, only reflects the needs of the owner and system function requirements in such a design, and the feasibility of technology implementation, and does not involve specific hardware and software products.
According to the design plan, the owner will delegate the hardware and software developers to develop by developers under the framework of the system design. At the same time as the owner entrusted the developer, it is also necessary to entrust the test institution to conduct system testing, such a test institution is equivalent to engineering supervision of construction projects. Here, the test institution has formed a constraint with the developer. If the software passes the test, the owner should pay to the normal payment of the test institution; if the problem is found in the test, and the software developer reaches the owner's request, the software developer will append to the testing agency will cost; if the software is tested Neitudes, that is, the development failed, but software developers not only compensate the owners' losses, but also pay excess expenses to the test institution. It is not difficult to see that the software products developed under such a mechanism have been easily guaranteed. The development of my country's software projects first lacks system design, and the lack of specialized test institutions is often design, testing and development. "Three Kingdoms Gu Jin". At the end of the project, an identification will be held in order to prove that the project is in line with the requirements of the owner. And such an appraisal will often flow in the form. The expert Yang "is invited to the meeting", "I have a good life", I have a good song, singing a praise, and I have already been "iron plate nails", as for the quality of the software It is another problem. In addition, the software is a conceptual concept, but what is software, it may not be answered by everyone. In fact, so-called software means that the computer program plus documents. Therefore, those that are stored on the medium can run on the computer, if the document is missing, can only be a computer program, then non-software. I don't pay attention to the documentation is a common problem in my country's software industry. In the US software industry, documentation has a very important status, a software product, especially those large software, if the document is not limited, is unable to deliver it to the user. It is in this mechanism that has produced many companies specializing in software products. What is a software service? Through the above example "tube", it is impossible to peek into the "Leopard" of the software service! From a business watching software services We know that companies are the main body of the market economy, and companies are both product and service providers, and consumers for products and services. As a consumer, it requires a variety of products, including software products and services. Therefore, when we stand in the perspective of business needs, we can see the nature of the problem. We know that the operation of the company is made by a series of work. It is divided into all the work of the company. It can be divided into three levels, namely: the first layer is an operating layer, also called the transaction layer, such as a company Production activities, accounting processing of financial accounting. The management of enterprise materials, etc.; the second layer is management, or may be called system management, mainly based on information management, such as corporate information management, marketing management, financial management, etc. The third layer is a creative layer. It is also possible to be called a strategic decision-making layer, such as developing corporate development strategies, corporate internal system reform, corporate processes, etc. Further research shows that the above three levels have different characteristics: the first layer is the strongest; the second layer is relatively weak, and the third layer of work is intermittent, some of which are periodic, such as enterprises The annual summary, etc., some are one-time occurrence, such as internal reforms of enterprises. However, it is common, which is three levels of work that requires support for software and services, thereby forming three levels of service needs.
The first layer of demand is generally a single function, and its operating environment is also relatively simple and fixed, most of which is an alternative and simulation of manual work. Today, in the software market, this layer of demand can be met in most cases, to purchase the product software in the market. At the same time, such software products are relatively simple to service, and users' requirements for software services are generally expanded around the product function. When the running hardware environment is not adapted, there is a deadlock or abnormally exit during the operation. Since the software use instructions are unknown or incorrect, the user may have service needs. Of course, from the perspective of corporate users, it is best to have good robustness and user friendliness. At the same time, there must be better instructions, so companies can do not need to serve, because for any service, companies have to spend Cost, at least time cost; in addition, once the software has problems or faults in operation, there is a consultation and answer, so that the hotline, email, online help, etc. can be considered, and can be based on the user The design of the fixed-point service center, the agency service station, etc. The second layer of demand software products and services are more complicated than the first layer. In general, this layer of software products and services are difficult to buy directly from the market, that is, unable to buy goods software, need to entrust professional institutions to develop software projects. Therefore, this time the software product and service is combined, or it can be said that the entire project is a service. Due to the complex, unpredictable factors, such software projects are not directly priced, to determine the content and price of the project through a series of bargaining negotiations. We often hear a series of IT concepts and terms such as system integration, MIS, DSS, ERP, CIMS, etc., which belong to this layer of software products and services. Data from home and abroad shows that the success rate of software and services in this layer is relatively low, so improvement of this layer of software and services is a hard task in front of software companies. Especially in our country, this layer is very weak. Although there are also some companies claim to be positioned in system integration. In fact, many system integration companies are also limited to network wiring and system support, and there is still a big distance from the real system integration. In the United States, software companies engaged in system integration mature, their representatives are EDS, the company is a large multinational enterprise, in the world, in 1998, the turnover is $ 13 billion, and this A microsoft turnover is 14.4 billion US dollars, it can be seen that the EDS size is large. What is the goal of system integration? In our country, "providing the overall solution" may be a large software company, or only three or five small software companies dare to say, but people also understand how much "gold content" can you have in this set? No wonder some people say, "I have a big big solution to the overall solution". In terms of system integrated enterprise like EDS, "providing overall solutions" is the highest goal they are pursuing. There is also a point in need to point out that there is no attention to data in software product development and services is another common disease in my country's software companies. In foreign countries, some people have questioned the software mentioned earlier is the definition of computer program plus documents. They believe that software is not enough, but also add data, that is, software is program plus document plus data. Speaking of attention, we can't think of Dr. James Martin America. Martin's development of enterprises from theory to practice from theory to practice, the most prominent point is to change the MIS development method centered on the previous process, and change to the development method based on data planning, and expand new. The vast space increases software services to an unprecedented level. The software and services of the third layer needs are very different from two levels.
Today, the demand for this layer of software and services is still in the bud phase in my country, and there are many aspects or blank. Software and services in the creative level, the status between the two has undergone fundamental changes, and the service is rising as the dominant position, and the software is reduced to the attached and secondary status. However, the service that is talking about is not a general service, and has a broader handling and deeper connotation. The software service here is a broad service, including the analysis and design of enterprise MIS, corporate organization design, corporate process design, enterprise process reconstruction, corporate development strategy consulting, management consulting, corporate diagnosis, corporate planning. Currently, many world-renowned management consultants, such as McKinsey, Ansheng, etc., in the process of providing consulting services for enterprises, using software system applications as important content, and act as an important support technology for enhancing the core competitiveness of the company. In my country, management consultation and software and services are also "God Dao Shu", and it is difficult. In the 1980s, the company MIS construction, in recent years, enterprises ERP applications, all the media is hot, the company is hot, but the hotspot is only hot, the subject is only the subject, truly developed and has achieved remarkable results. There are few days to do. Why does this event? The reason is that it is still in the first layer and the second layer, and there is no combination with the service. Watching software services from home is a class of software with broad development space. Since the nature of the family itself is decided, the family has fundamentally distinguished software and services. Home software is on the content, including: 1 software related to personal work; 2 educational software; 3 entertainment software; 4 home administration software; 5 other software. Family software has some common feature: one is lower price, generally in ten yuan, tens of ten yuan; Second, software function is single, low for hardware and software; three, most users have less knowledge, less knowledge, Some even have no difference; fourth is that the user is highly scattered, it is difficult to do one-on-one service. Family software is generally a complete product software. Therefore, from the perspective of software manufacturers and suppliers, it is unrealistic to provide support for thousands of yuan, or even tens of thousands of business software, which is unrealistic for home software. However, from the perspective of home users, just buy products, even if they only have more than ten yuan, the supply unit should also provide supporting services. Moreover, family users are more demanding for supporting services. This is due to: First, the family users have less computers, and the ability to rule out the fault is relatively poor; second, family users are more difficult to support technical support, and a company generally has a computer technician, can exclude hardware and software for different departments. Fault; third is that the home user computer software and hardware configuration is relatively low, there are a lot of downtime, so it is more likely to malfunction, although most of these faults are not caused by the software they purchased. Through the above analysis, we are not difficult to see that providing a supporting service for family software in a two difficulties, one party has strong demand, but there is no condition to provide satisfactory service. How to solve the family software service this "dead knot"? The author believes that issues should be considered from several aspects. First, as a production and supplier, product development should be based on the goal of not need service, that is, developed into a fool software. Home software should be like VCD discs, no one can use, no one will use, and the home software sold in the market has further improvement. The second is to form a software service organization directly oriented for end users rather than a single product. These organizations similar to the "Social Clinic" or "Software Hospital" have two channels: the sales of the software products or software chain stores and the service charges are charged.
