MSECO-SUP: Support Process in Mobile Software Ecosystems

In a Mobile Software Ecosystem (MSECO), the software organizations have opened up their structures to external developers aiming to reach goals to ensure the MSECO is working properly, such as increasing number of users, applications and developers. Thus, the management organization (keystone) must restructure its processes to support external developers and create ways to attract contributions to MSECO. In this scenario, the main MSECOs adopt the role of evangelist, which represents an important link between keystone and external developers. An evangelist supports the keystone to reach its goals and developers to be recognized within the MSECO. This paper presents MSECO-SUP, a process that comprises 9 activities, 3 roles, 10 artifacts, 9 recommendations, and 36 practices to support evangelists in reaching organizational goals by engaging and training external developers. Recommendations and practices were analyzed by 9 evangelists acting in the main MSECOs (Android, iOS and Windows Phone) in order to assess their benefits for the routine of evangelism. After the survey, 7 new practices were added and MSECO-Sup has 43 practices.