Providing a model of a life cycle of an enterprise offering

1 . A method executed by a computer, comprising:

according to information regarding an enterprise offering, determining characteristics of a life cycle of the enterprise offering; and

producing a model that includes functions representing segments of the life cycle according to the determined characteristics.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the characteristics of the life cycle of the enterprise offering comprises determining boundary points that define various phases of the life cycle of the enterprise offering, wherein the segments correspond to the phases.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein producing the model comprises producing the model using a linear regression technique.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein the determined characteristics include boundary points, and wherein using the linear regression technique comprises defining linear segments based on the boundary points.

5 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

defining an objective function; and

identifying boundary points defining the segments of the life cycle of the enterprise offering based on the objective function.

6 . The method of claim 5 , wherein defining the objective function comprises defining a residual sum of squares or a residual sum of absolute values objective function.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the segments of the life cycle of the enterprise offering are defined by boundary points, the method further comprising:

identifying the boundary points by first identifying a last one of the boundary points and working backwardly to identify earlier one or more of the boundary points.

8 . The method of claim 7 , wherein identifying the boundary points comprises identifying optimal boundary points based on minimizing an objective function.

9 . The method of claim 1 , wherein producing the model comprises producing a linear regression model of the life cycle of the enterprise offering.

10 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

according to information regarding a second enterprise offering, determining characteristics of a second life cycle of the second enterprise offering; and

producing a second model that includes functions representing segments of the second life cycle based on the determined characteristics of the second life cycle.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

aggregating the models of the enterprise offerings to provide an aggregate model to enable analysis with respect to a third enterprise offering.

12 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

defining one of the models as a base model;

normalizing another of the models based on the base model,

wherein aggregating the models comprises aggregating the base model with the normalized model.

13 . The method of claim 11 , further comprising using the aggregate model to perform forecasting for the third enterprise offering.

14 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the characteristics of the life cycle of the enterprise offering comprises determining the characteristics of the life cycle of one of a product and a service provided by an enterprise.

15 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the characteristics of the life cycle of the enterprise offering comprises determining that the life cycle has plural phases including at least a ramp-up phase, a maturity phase, and a ramp-down phase.

16 . A method executed by a computer, comprising:

building models representing life cycles of plural corresponding enterprise offerings;

normalizing at least one of the life cycle models based on another of the life cycle models; and

aggregating the life cycle models including the normalized at least one life cycle model to produce an aggregate life cycle model.

17 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising performing analysis using the aggregate life cycle model for a further enterprise offering.

18 . The method of claim 17 , wherein performing the analysis comprises performing forecasting of demand for the further enterprise offering.

19 . Instructions on a computer-usable storage medium that when executed cause a computer to:

according to information regarding an enterprise offering, determine boundary points relating to segments of a life cycle of the enterprise offering; and

produce, using a linear regression technique, a model of the segments of the life cycle based on the determined boundary points.

20 . The instructions of claim 19 , wherein determining the boundary points comprises:

defining an objective function;

selecting various estimates of the boundary points; and

identifying the determined boundary points using the objective function.