Why Software Development Is Going to Disrupt the Software Industry
Full disclosure: I am a former developer. It’s something that I feel should be stated upfront, because it provides some insight into my particular perspective when it comes to the current state of software development. And, yes, I also work for IBM.

Setting the Stage
I’ll begin with what is not news for your typical software developer, today: software developers are not being appropriately compensated for their efforts by the industry. In fact, in many ways, you could draw parallels between what developers are experiencing today and what exploited workers have experienced in the past—working conditions which served to oppress rather than encourage, wages which were out of alignment with the actual value that the worker is producing, widespread discontent in the worker ranks. These indicators, I believe, are pointing to a significant realignment of the market—and is setting up the market [...] Continue Reading…

SaaS is more than just an acronym. It’s a new way of thinking.
Software as a Service. SaaS. What exactly is it? And why are companies starting to pay so much attention to it? We’ve heard about the predictions of SaaS being a US$ 10+ billion market by 2009. But we’ve all heard such predictions before. If you’ve just become comfortable with the concept of “Web 2.0”, you’re probably wondering what SaaS is, why you should care about it, and what its implications might be. It turns out that SaaS has the potential to significantly alter the landscape of the software industry—but we’ll get to that later. First, let’s figure out what SaaS is all about.

Software as a Service, today.
Sometimes it helps to start with a definition. Wikipedia’s is as good as any:

“Software as a service (SaaS) is a software application delivery model where a software vendor develops a web-native [...] Continue Reading…

In an earlier post, I discussed how the gaming industry was impacting the software industry. Here we take a look at a concrete example of one game that has caught the attention of big business…
The most popular MMO, World of Warcraft, most often referred to as “WoW” by its community, recently announced that it had reached a benchmark of over 8 million subscribers, 3.5 million in the US and Europe, with another 3.5 million in China. Doing the math, and accounting just for US and European subscribers who pay the full $15 per  US month subscription, that will eventually equate to some $49M in monthly revenue for Blizzard Entertainment,, the company which created WoW.  And that’s just subscriber income. WoW periodically releases expansion packs which cost an average of $40 US per  unit. Blizzard  sold over 2.4M copies of its latest expansion pack in one day. For those counting, [...] Continue Reading…

It’s not just fun and games anymore…
A continuation of my last post, we get to the last three of the of the five innovations which the gaming industry has lead.

3. Online gaming gets mature (ish)
Virtual reality is finally becoming something, well, tangible. It also provides opportunities that early SciFi writers like Aldous Huxley, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Tad Williams (to name a few) envisioned: fully functional worlds in which life imitates art…or perhaps more accurately art as life, albeit in a digital form.

You’ve probably heard of SecondLife. I was first introduced to SL back in 2003 when a friend of mine suggested I take a look. I soon found myself immersed in the SL community. After about two months, though, I began to think I was wasting my time in a game that wasn’t even a game. Some emerging technologies strategist I am — I soon left the [...] Continue Reading…

It’s not just fun and games anymore…
Previously, I had discussed how the gaming industry was directly impacting the software industry. I ended the previous article with a question: are there developments which might have interesting consequences for the software industry in the future?

The new and innovative developments that are gaining traction in today’s gaming represent trends and opportunities that may (ad: stronger word than “may” – are likely to? That works for me ) surface in the general software development industry a few years from now. With that in mind, here are five specific innovationsto watch:

1. Software distribution, ‘07 style
One of the two components of the Software as a Service model is the concept of online digital distribution of software. Simply put, it’s a premise software companies can’t ignore because of the tremendous boost SaaS should provide to the gross margins (and profits) of software companies. As software companies [...] Continue Reading…