Software Ecosystem: Understanding an Indispensable Technology and Industry

Software has gone from obscurity to indispensability in less than fiftyyears. Although other industries have followed a similar trajectory, software andits supporting industry are different. In this book the authors explain, from avariety of perspectives, how software and the software industry aredifferent--technologically, organizationally, and socially.The growing import

Software has gone from obscurity to indispensability in less than fiftyyears. Although other industries have followed a similar trajectory, software andits supporting industry are different. In this book the authors explain, from avariety of perspectives, how software and the software industry aredifferent--technologically, organizationally, and socially.The growing importance ofsoftware requires professionals in all fields to deal with both its technical andsocial aspects; therefore, users and producers of software need a common vocabularyto discuss software issues. In Software Ecosystem, Messerschmitt and Szyperskiaddress the overlapping and related perspectives of technologists andnontechnologists. After an introductory chapter on technology, the book is organizedaround six points of view: users, and what they need software to accomplish forthem; software engineers and developers, who translate the user's needs into programcode; managers, who must orchestrate the resources, material and human, to operatethe software; industrialists, who organize companies to produce and distributesoftware; policy experts and lawyers, who must resolve conflicts inside and outsidethe industry without discouraging growth and innovation; and economists, who offerinsights into how the software market works. Each chapter considers not only theissues most relevant to that perspective but also relates those issues to the otherperspectives as well. Nontechnologists will appreciate the context in whichtechnology is discussed; technical professionals will gain more understanding of thesocial issues that should be considered in order to make software more useful andsuccessful.