Software products evolve. Initially, they solve an urgent business problem for a customer, but as time progresses, these products become increasingly integrated into the IT landscape of a customer. As integrations become more numerous, the product's architecture and development process need to change and the product starts looking more like a platform. In this talk we discuss the changing role of the software product manager during the evolution of a software product, using academic case studies performed with companies such as Microsoft, Huawei, and Exact Software.

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Slinger Jansen is one of the leading researchers in the domain of software ecosystems and co-founders of the International Conference on Software Business and International Workshop on Software Ecosystems. He is lead editor of the book “Software Ecosystems: Analyzing and Managing Business Networks in the Software Industry” and of several others. Besides his academic endeavors he actively supports new enterprises and sits on the boards of advisors of several start-ups.