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26-713: Nullsoft, Inc. was an American software house founded in Sedona, Arizona in 1997 by programmer Justin Frankel . Its products included the Winamp media player and the SHOUTcast MP3 streaming media server. In 1997, Justin Frankel , a programmer from Sedona, Arizona , founded Nullsoft, Inc in his home town. The company's name is a parody of Microsoft . Mike the Llama is the company's mascot . The company launched

52-444: A software company is a very specialized type of management skill, where experienced persons can turn the organizational problem into a unique benefit. For example, having sub-teams spread in different time zones may allow a 24-hour company working day, if the teams, systems, and procedures are well established. A good example is the test team in a time zone 8 hours ahead or behind the development team, who fix software bugs found by

78-617: A classification of stakeholders to consider has been criticized as creating a false dichotomy between the "shareholder model" and the "stakeholder model", or a false analogy of the obligations towards shareholders and other interested parties. Any action taken by any organization or any group might affect those people who are linked with them in the private sector. For examples these are parents, children, customers, owners, employees, associates, partners, contractors, and suppliers, people that are related or located nearby. Broadly speaking there are three types of stakeholders: A narrow mapping of

104-430: A company's stakeholders might identify the following stakeholders: A broader mapping of a company's stakeholders may also include: In the field of corporate governance and corporate responsibility , a debate is ongoing about whether the firm or company should be managed primarily for stakeholders, stockholders ( shareholders ), customers , or others. Proponents in favor of stakeholders may base their arguments on

130-582: A different group plays a key role, however each type of role must be involved throughout the whole development process: Software companies possess various systems and procedures implemented and working internally across all the sub-teams. These include: There are also Application Lifecycle Management (ALM), which embed some of these functionalities in one package and are used across the groups. They are delivered from various vendors like Borland , ECM or Compuware . Well-established software companies typically have some way of measuring their own efficiency. This

156-488: A near-concurrent departure of Frankel and the original Winamp development team. In 2013, some AOL Music sites were shut down and others sold to Townsquare Media . In November 2013, an unofficial report surfaced that Microsoft was in talks with AOL to acquire Nullsoft. On January 14, 2014, it was officially announced that Belgian online radio aggregator Radionomy had bought Winamp and Shoutcast, formerly owned by Nullsoft. No financial details were publicly announced. Winamp

182-490: A number of various methodologies to produce the code. These can include: There are also some methodologies which combine both, such as the spiral model , Rational Unified Process (RUP) or MSF . Regardless of the methodology used, the product life cycle always consists of at least three stages: Each stage ideally takes 30% of the total time, with the remaining 10% in reserve. The UML sequence diagram of interaction between these groups may look like: At each stage

208-512: A technology called Ultravox being developed by Nullsoft. The company also created the peer-to-peer networks Gnutella and WASTE . Although AOL tried to limit the distribution of Gnutella and WASTE, the Ultravox technology was reportedly used for some AOL radio services in 2003. A service called Nullsoft Television was announced in 2003 using NSV. Software house There are a number of different types of software companies: Organizing

234-536: Is a media player released by Nullsoft in April 1997. By 1999, it was downloaded by 15 million people. The company released several new versions of the Winamp player and grew its monthly unique subscriber base to 60 million users by late 2004. Winamp was discontinued by Nullsoft around 2013. New versions of Winamp, which started releasing in 2023, are by a different developer named Llama Group. SHOUTcast (currently Shoutcast)

260-444: Is a synonym for "stakeholder". Post, Preston, Sachs (2002), use the following definition of the term "stakeholder": "A person, group or organization that has interest or concern in an organization. Stakeholders can affect or be affected by the organization's actions, objectives and policies. Some examples of key stakeholders are creditors, directors, employees, government (and its agencies), owners (shareholders), suppliers, unions, and

286-571: Is an MP3 streaming media server. In later years, their open source installer system, the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS) became an alternative to commercial products like InstallShield . Nullsoft's developments after acquisition included the Nullsoft Streaming Video (NSV) format, which was intended to stream media that used any audio or video codec . In 2002, the press reported

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312-436: Is defined by numbers) and total anarchy (where there are no numbers at all). Whichever way the organization goes, they consider the pyramid describing the cost and risk of introducing change to already-begun development processes as a true model to manage changes. Stakeholder (corporate) In a corporation , a stakeholder is a member of "groups without whose support the organization would cease to exist", as defined in

338-639: Is usually done by defining the set of key performance indicators (KPI), such as A number of organizations are focused on reaching the optimum level of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), where "optimum" does not necessarily mean the highest. There are also other systems such as Carnegie-Mellon University 's SEMA , or particular ISO standards. Small software companies will often use light-weight approaches to their process, formalized or not. Each organization works out its own style, which lies somewhere between total technocracy (where all

364-486: The bearers of externalities are included in stakeholdership. In the last decades of the 20th century, the word "stakeholder" became more commonly used to mean a person or organization that has a legitimate interest in a project or entity. In discussing the decision-making process for institutions—including large business corporations , government agencies , and non-profit organizations —the concept has been broadened to include everyone with an interest (or "stake") in what

390-511: The community from which the business draws its resources. Not all stakeholders are equal. A company's customers are entitled to fair trading practices but they are not entitled to the same consideration as the company's employees. The stakeholders in a corporation are the individuals and constituencies that contribute, either voluntarily or involuntarily, to its wealth-creating capacity and activities, and that are therefore its potential beneficiaries and/or risk bearers." This definition differs from

416-404: The entity does. This includes not only vendors, employees , and customers , but even members of a community where its offices or factory may affect the local economy or environment. In this context, a "stakeholder" includes not only the directors or trustees on its governing board (who are stakeholders in the traditional sense of the word) but also all persons who paid into the figurative stake and

442-513: The first usage of the word in a 1963 internal memorandum at the Stanford Research Institute . The theory was later developed and championed by R. Edward Freeman in the 1980s. Since then it has gained wide acceptance in business practice and in theorizing relating to strategic management , corporate governance , business purpose and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The definition of corporate responsibilities through

468-450: The following four key assertions: A corporate stakeholder can affect or be affected by the actions of a business as a whole. Whereas shareholders are often the party with the most direct and obvious interest at stake in business decisions, they are one of various subsets of stakeholders, as customers and employees also have stakes in the outcome. In the most developed sense of stakeholders in terms of real corporate responsibility ,

494-463: The media player Winamp in 1997, developed by Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev. It was the second real-time MP3 player for Windows, following WinPlay3 . Nullsoft, along with Spinner.com , were sold to America Online (AOL) on June 1, 1999, for around $ 400 million and thereafter existed as a subsidiary , subsequently becoming a division of AOL Music. The headquarters were moved to San Francisco, California . According to Bonnie Burton , then editor of

520-420: The members of the overall community to focus the organisation's scarce resources on the most significant stakeholders. Example The holders of each separate kind of interest in the entity's affairs are called a constituency, so there may be a constituency of stockholders , a constituency of adjoining property owners, a constituency of banks the entity owes money to, and so on. In that usage, "constituent"

546-643: The older definition of the term stakeholder in Stakeholder theory (Freeman, 1983) that also includes competitors as stakeholders of a corporation. Robert Allen Phillips provides a moral foundation for stakeholder theory in Stakeholder Theory and Organizational Ethics . There he defends a "principle of stakeholder fairness" based on the work of John Rawls , as well as a distinction between normative and derivative legitimate stakeholders. Real stakeholders, labelled stakeholders: genuine stakeholders with

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572-511: The people and pay for their time. This leads to each private employee having two bosses – the product/project manager and the specialized "resource" manager. On one hand it optimizes the usage of human resources, on the other hand it may give rise to conflicts about which one manager has priority in the structure. There are also a number of variants of these structures, and a number of organizations have this structure spread and split within various departments and units. Software companies may use

598-399: The persons to whom it may be "paid out" (in the sense of a "payoff" in game theory , meaning the outcome of the transaction). Therefore, in order to effectively engage with a community of stakeholders, the organisation's management needs to be aware of the stakeholders, understand their wants and expectations, understand their attitude (supportive, neutral or opposed), and be able to prioritize

624-663: The size of the organization . Usually teams of up to 10 person are the most operational. In bigger organizations, there are in general two models of the hierarchy: All the teams are fully independent and they work separately on the different projects. The structure is quite simple and all the employees reports to one person, what make the situation quite clear however it is not a good solution in terms of knowledge exchange and optimal usage of human resources. In this model there are dedicated managers/leaders for each main specialization, "renting" their people for particular projects led by product/project managers, who formally or informally buy

650-481: The testers. A professional software company normally consists of at least three dedicated sub-teams : In bigger software companies, greater specialization is employed, and quite often there are also: The manager of a software company is usually called the Head Of Development (HOD), and reports to the stakeholders . He or she leads the sub-teams directly or via the managers/leaders depending on

676-538: The website Winamp.com, 2001 was a period of heightened tension between the Nullsoft staff and upper management, because of Frankel's uncompromising views about file-sharing. He had developed Gnutella in 2000 and released it using company infrastructure. Ars Technica also noted that AOL failed to effectively monetize or find a larger audience for Winamp. Nullsoft's San Francisco offices were closed in December 2003, with

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