vation. The project is meant to become a part, albeit small, of the context of the com-
petitiveness of Sardinian companies, with its purpose to create a software for the
automation of cultural services.
The Italian production system is characterized by a high volume of very small-
sized companies in every sector, which work outside cooperation agreements or net-
works. This structural characteristic does not allow these companies to compete on
the markets of goods where price, which comes from production costs, is the main
factor to acquire and maintain market shares.
The limited availability of funding will strongly affect any new investments made
by libraries in goods and services, and will force them to question the worth of main-
taining current services, including computer-based services and the automation of
bibliographic catalogs. The market prospects regarding this particular aspect, that is
the reduction of management costs of technical services, could be favorable for those
companies that are committed to creating and supplying more effective software,
more competitive in terms of price, and technical support services that would help
institutions to save on service cost keeping the same or a higher quality level.
As regards the demand, the product to be created is clearly geared towards a target
of customers that have already completed the first steps in service automation, thus it
has to meet the needs of a well informed user base with high expectations in terms of
performance of management systems.
A new product with the features described in the previous sections has great mar-
ket prospects, especially in Northern Italy, where the demand for innovative products
is stronger and where more libraries, more resources, and more well-established co-
operation networks among organizations are located, to provide advanced services to
the citizen.
Acknowledgements. Simone Porru gratefully acknowledges Sardinia Regional Gov-
ernment for the financial support of his PhD scholarship (P.O.R. Sardegna F.S.E.
Operational Programme of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, European Social
Fund 2007-2013 Axis IV Human Resources, Objective l.3, Line of Activity l.3.1).
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