The introduction of product upgrades in a competitive environment is commonly observed in the software industry. When introducing a new product, a software vendor may employ behavior-based price discrimination (BBPD) by offering a discount over its market price to entice existing customers of...

In this paper, we model competition between two software product vendors, an incumbent and entrant, with specific focus on the role of switching costs. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we find that under certain conditions the switching costs imposed by the incumbent's product could actually...

This paper develops and analyzes a model of competition between platforms in an industry with indirect network effects, with a specific focus on complementary product exclusivity. The objective is to understand the conditions under which complement exclusivity can be observed and analyze the...

When an improvable durable good (such as packaged software) saturates the market, the seller could be tempted to release new versions too frequently, hurting her profit. A novel contractual device, which we term as a Free New Version Rights warranty (Free NVR warranty), can help the seller...

Nonlinear usage-based pricing is applied extensively to price software products. Different from other products, software customers often cannot vary their required usage volume, a property we label local demand inelasticity. For instance, a client firm that needs a salesforce automation software...