Among the important technical advances have been developments in abstraction mechanisms, modularization techniques and object oriented technologies. These technologies promise to play an important role in helping to realize the benefits of reuse by enabling alternative ways of packaging software through modular construction. Software developers will be able to take advantage of economies generated by the increased division of labor and capital, while maintaining the flexibility needed to adapt to changing requirements and demands. Some of the benefits taht are seen as deriving from reuse include lower development costs, reduced time of development, greater predictability of budget and schedule, and lower maintenance costs.
The Agorics Project, a team of researchers at the Center for the Study of Market Processes at George Mason University, is now engaging in a comprehensive study of the software components industry. Our study will examine the interaction of these technological advances with the institutional and economic factors that will affect the development of a vigorous software components industry. In particular we will investigate the possibility of markets in reusable components.