Talk:Software industry

Visual media

I think there should be some images or media included to help readers understand the topic better, such as a specific software application, some famous companies, or the industry’s huge business.Dani Davide (talk) 19:24, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Software Industry Data

I have distilled a revenue table from a Software Magazine report. It would be swell if someone could make a nice pie chart out of it. Mikeblas 10:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Microsoft

This sentence bothers me, and i'm a total Microsoft fanboy: "As of 2006, the client software industry is dominated by Microsoft." It doesn't sound like a NPOV, especially when there's no source citation, and there's no context behind the statement. It's rather subjective since "dominating" can mean different things. And what's the significance of the year 2006? Please remove this sentence, or cite it. Thx. --0xDEADC0DE (talk) 22:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Merging

Maybe if this article gets expanded id won't need to be merged, but from my point of view, it seems highely unlikely that this will happen.Drydom ^{Any thoughts?} 05:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Concerns over this article

As it stands, this article is so misleading that it raises doubts about whether it should be deleted. It is nothing like B-Class on any objective scale. - Pointillist (talk) 00:38, 12 June 2008 (UTC). For example:

United States mention is misleading

• The 27 December edit here by User:Mikeblas incorporated the Software 500 table from Software Magazine. On 11 April 2007 the edit here by User:Wackymacs analysed this data. I don't know about the U.S. figures, but $4.4 million US$ for Germany for "the total amount of revenue brought by software and software services companies" is completely wrong. SAP is based in Germany and they reported €2,018,000,000 global income for FY 2004 (per [1]). The Wikipedia article on SAP says they are the 3rd largest software vendor in the world, so it is misleading to say that "The largest and most profitable of software companies are located in the United States" in this edit. The problem is that the Software Magazine 2007 listing uses SAP's US location as the reference point. On this basis how can we trust any of their figures?

Until two years ago, Software Magazine was a US list. Only US revenues could be entered. Hence SAP entered only its US revenues at the time. At the moment their list is becoming more international and worldwide revenues can be entered. Still, as Software Magazine is sold in the US mostly, non-US software companies do not know it and do not seek listing in the Software 500. BalderV (talk) 14:37, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

History section

Description of Digital Equipment (DEC) being associated with microcomputers is misleading unless Wikipedia defines microcomputers different than any other place I've ever seen the term used. Although DEC began making what today would be called components, it is most associated with minicomputers. But I don't think it was first as implied in this section Dennisbyron (talk) 17:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Also the AS/400 came much later than the fist minicomputer and was really a successor to IBM products knows as the Systems /3 and /3x instead of a reaction to the success of DEC and other mini manufacturers Dennisbyron (talk) 17:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe Microsoft's first product, written by Allen, was a version of Basic. I think the company wrote DOS to get the contract related to the IBM PC Dennisbyron (talk) 17:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Jumping from there to SaaS leaves out an awful lot of software history??? Dennisbyron (talk) 17:23, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The use of the term "piracy" in the sentence "SaaS reduces the concerns about software piracy" is pretty POV. As the FSF has remarked, do we really want to compare "unauthorized use" with "kidnapping and murder on the high seas"? So i would suggest the much more neutral "SaaS reduces concerns about unauthorized use of software". Son of eugene (talk) 06:58, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

'The word "software" was coined as a prank as early as 1953' -- the citation here is self-published, original research: one individual claiming to have coined the term in 1953. I strongly suggest it be removed. eggsyntax (talk) 17:04, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Definition of "Software Industry" is inconsistent

• This edit on 18 Nov 2006 said that software services are part of the industry. If that is correct then unreported revenues earned by implementation partners (PwC, Accenture, KPMG, etc) are part of the industry. Do the figures from Software Magazine include these revenues allocated to the correct location? If not, they are irrelevant.

"Started... at the time of the PC revolution" is misleading

• It is probably true that the industry dates from the mid-1970s (before then most development was done in-house by hardware vendors) but this phrasing implies that the software industry is concerned only with microcomputer applications. That doesn't seem to be how companies like Computer Associates, SAP, SSA, Nomad etc., achieved success.

"Sectors" is misleading

• This section was originally titled "practices" in this edit. User:Chendy re-titled it to "Sectors" in this edit but I think "Licensing models" would be a better title. Either way, a distinction between "Perpetual" and "Subscription" would be useful.
• The implication that only "Commercial" software is used for commercial purposes is misleading, given how much open source software is in commercial use.

The suppliers associated with the various sectors are misleading as examples in that most of the software market leaders develop and market all the various types of software listed. You cannot simply associate IBM and Microsoft with infrastructure software (what about Notes and Office) or Oracle and SAP with applications software (what about the Oracle database and NetWeaver) Dennisbyron (talk) 17:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Failure to describe strategic models in the industry

• The 'Overview' section makes a good distinction between proprietory and open source models but says "Developing proprietary software is costly" is if developing open source software is not. The difference mainly lies in the way the costs are borne.
• There's no mention of Vendor lock-in which is part of every vendor's model.
• There's also no mention of the costs of supporting software: e.g. that it can cost more to support a product than it took to develop it. Ideally this would be used to describe the business model, e.g. ERP vendors charge 15-20% of the license cost per year to "maintain" their product (but expect infrequent product upgrades) whereas PC software vendors don't necessarily charge for maintenance but may charge for frequent product upgrades.
• More generally, the "Sectors" section fails to discuss:
  • Corporate models, e.g. "products offered" vs "markets served" (these are major strategic issues for software developers and publishers).
  • Market models, e.g. "Enterprise", "Department", "End user", "Developer".
  • Product/Service delivery models, e.g. "Product", "Implementation", "Maintenance", "Turnkey"

Lack of references

• Every statement in Wikipedia should be verifiable using external references - at least one per sentence. This article has only three references including the link to the maybe irrelevant Software Magazine article.

softwaretop100.org is not WP:RS -- EsotericRogue Talk 15:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Related, I removed Geography section. After removing two bad sources, the only content might have been "The United States of America is clearly the leader" which isn't clear to me. -- EsotericRogue Talk 15:33, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

softwaretop100.org is WP:RS. Let's try to improve instead of merely delete what we don't like. Wikipedia was not built on deleted content. --BalderV (talk) 11:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

System integration

• Does the software industry definition also include activities from systems integration and custom/offshore software development? Or is the scope more limited, to prepackaged software? I think the definition should be precise on this. Probably SaaS should also be mentioned in the definition. BalderV (talk) 14:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Buy vs build

I might add something from this: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=8085093 on buy versus build. Talpedia (talk) 11:33, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Wrong article description?

"Class of businesses specializing in kishan the development, maintenance and publication of software" the word kishan shouldn't be there should it? I can't remove it because the page is protected but maybe someone else can. MagicPupper (talk) 10:40, 23 June 2023 (UTC)