Over the past many years, software has become a vital component of almost every business and national economy. Virtually any product or service has become software enabled. As a result, organizations’ competitiveness largely depends on their ability to use the software as a competitive weapon. What makes the competitive landscape more complex is the kind of pressures organizations face in terms of time to market, new features, cost, and, of course, quality and reliability. Furthermore, organizations are finding it increasingly challenging to operate as convergence, discontinuity, and economic boundarylessness lead to the birth of a new breed of global customers. And any organization’s survival—let alone success—is therefore clearly becoming dependent on an ability to understand the characteristics of such international customers and serve them accordingly. In their quest for software excellence, organizations must rely increasingly on software engineering techniques and methodologies and rely on and refine their traditional business strategies. This book: 1. Extends four well-known CACM thinking (O=Object) Objective Software Engineering in the Small columns: I. Software Engineering in the Small II. Problems with Scalability III. Management in the Small IV. Process Improvement in the Small 2. Discuss the September/October 2000, IEEE Software Introduction: Software Engineering in the Small theme Issue 3. Comments and explains responses, 4. Answers many questions.