Software product management (SPM) is a well-defined area in software engineering. It has remained a contemporary area for enhancing the productivity of software. Despite the evolving techniques, tools, and technologies, including agile software, formal methods, SCRUM, and extreme programming (XP), the software industry is always challenged by usefulness, usability, and actual use of the software. Various software measurements, benchmarks, standards, and quality systems have been developed for wider acceptance and use of software.

This paper demonstrates a survey method to showcase industry behavior in SPM. It uses questionnaire-based responses from the industry, involving many organizations. The findings are quite expected since they qualify the challenges measured through software benchmarks and measurements, especially through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG), and other related benchmark tools. I was eager to read some references from these sources in the paper, and was really disappointed to find that many of Ebert’s works are used instead. The questions used as instruments for getting responses are quite subjective, and could be answered differently by different organizations existing with different objectives. I also wonder how information technology (IT) was brought into the ambit of this paper--where does it appear in the analyses? IT and software complement each other, and therefore their relationship is synonymous with assessing software productivity.

However, the paper provides insights into industry behavior through a set of success factors, which may encourage researchers and practitioners to use the findings.