Defining Software - The Challenge
For those readers not fully familiar with the software industry, it is important to note that software markets can be usefully segmented into areas with distinctly differing prospects and dynamics. The principal division is between software products (or packaged software) on one hand and software services on the other. Software products include, for example, Application Solutions - the software used by the general public and within industry - and Application Developments tools - the software needed to write software. Software Services include activities such as training, customer software development, software maintenance and facilities management. A useful market characterisation is to look at the lifecycle of software services in terms of planning, implementing, maintaining and operating. The market forecasters International Data Corporation (IDC) have set the de-facto standard for the segmentation of software markets and we reproduce this segmentation in Appendix A.
