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From Products to Services: The Software Industry in the Internet Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

Martin Campbell-Kelly  and
Daniel D. Garcia-Swartz
Martin Campbell-Kelly
Affiliation:
MARTIN CAMPBELL-KELLY is professor in the Department of Computer Science at Warwick University.
Daniel D. Garcia-Swartz
Affiliation:
MARTIN CAMPBELL-KELLY is professor in the Department of Computer Science at Warwick University.
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Abstract

The computer-services and software industry used to be conveniently divided into three main sectors: mass-market software vendors, enterprise software vendors, and computer services. The three sectors were distinct, because personal computers, corporate mainframes, and online computer networks operated in relative isolation. The arrival of the Internet effectively connected everything, facilitating the entry of mass-market vendors into enterprise software and of both mass-market and enterprise software vendors into computer services. As the turbulence of the first decade of the Internet era subsides, a gradual transition from traditional software products to “Web services” is taking place.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 81 , Issue 4 , Winter 2007 , pp. 735 - 764
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2007

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