The future of Software (Was: August PLUG topic: Kylix)

Sat, 28 Jul 2001 03:02:32 -0500

 It's sad that people have been brain washed to the point
where they have lost their imagination.
I can think of 5 killer apps that nobody has even 
started developing yet.
and the current software that has been developed can still
be improved upon by making it more modular........
 Yes we have a computer that can do several
tasks but why should we have to boot
a whole operating system, when all we want to do
is use the calculator at one moment, the tv the next, etc.

CYCLOX
the caveman
----------------
On Friday 27 July 2001 19:43, you wrote:
> I think software is slowly moving to the "commodity" state you
> describe but I like to call "open source."  Eventually software,
> for most things, will be come so easy to create it will not be
> worth keeping proprietary and all will be open source.  It is the
> future of software, eventually.  I think it will take a long time
> to get there and my wallet likes that.
>
> Alan
>
> At 03:46 PM 7/27/01 -0700, you wrote:
> >David,
> >You make some good points.  Do you see software for most uses
> > approaching a sort of "commodity" state where "it just works"
> > and there's no real
>
> incentive
>
> >for users to upgrade?  When you look at the vast majority of
> > applications
>
> that
>
> >most people actually use, such as email, web-browsers, and word
> > processors, there's really not a lot more that can be done.  It
> > seems to me that the biggest threat to proprietary software
> > developers is that they can only sharpen the knife so much
> > before users just don't care anymore.  Version
>
> 19.7
>
> >of "Knife" might be 3% sharper than Version 19.6 of "Knife," but
> > most users aren't going to care and they're not going to be
> > interested in forking (no
>
> pun
>
> >intended) over more money for a new tool that offers very
> > minimal (if any) advantages over their previous tool.
> >We've already pretty much reached the point of "commodity"
> > hardware.  Do I really care that there's a 8000.74THz Pentium
> > 64 available, when my
>
> Pentium II
>
> >350MHz system does everything I need just fine?
> >My point is, I don't think that the software or hardware
> > industry can
>
> possibly
>
> >support in the future the incredible growth (and high salaries)
> > that have
>
> been
>
> >present in the past.
> >Microsoft realizes this, and that's why they're desperately
> > trying to move people over to a subscription model for their
> > software.  If they can charge you just like the utility company
> > charges you, then they can ensure a
>
> healthy
>
> >revenue stream for their future.  But is the customer really
> > gaining
>
> anything
>
> >over the old model?  No.  I'm almost positive that whatever
> > "upgrades" occur will be minimal.  Once Microsoft has you
> > hooked on the subscription service for Office or Windows or
> > whatever, they won't even need software developers anymore. 
> > :-)  You basically pay over and over again to use their
> > product,
>
> but
>
> >it's essentially the same product that had reached a certain
> > level of functional maturity years ago.
> >~M
> >
> >Quoting "David P. Schwartz" <davids@desertigloo.com>:
> >> Every product you buy, whether it be at the grocery store, the
> >> department store, wherever, has a portion of it's price going
> >> to the retailer, a portion going to the distributor(s), and a
> >> portion going to the manufacturer.  Some of the amount paid to
> >> the mfgr is for "intellectual property".  Nothing you purchase
> >> in a store costs even 5% of what you pay in terms of its raw
> >> goods
> >> costs.  I don't get the issue people have around paying for
> >> software.
> >>
> >> The only way companies can really make a profit is by gaining
> >> leverage on their costs of goods plus costs of manufacturing. 
> >> An average employee who's paid $10/hr in a mfgr job is part of
> >> a larger equation whereby the company is earning between 100
> >> and 1000 times that.
> >>
> >> The stuff inside a box of cereal costs less than the package,
> >> yet people seem happy to pay nearly $5/box for cereal these
> >> days.  A floppy disk and CD cost more to manufacture than the
> >> entire box of cereal.  Some people argue that the major
> >> difference is that cereal is consumable, whereas software is
> >> not.  I guess the same argument can be made about cars, that
> >> they're consumable.
> >> So you don't mind paying $20k for a car that costs less than
> >> 20% of that in raw cost of goods.
> >>
> >> If you measured the "consumption rate" of software by the
> >> number of times you used software, then maybe $5/use would
> >> satisfy you for most needs -- but would you pay that for your
> >> email service?
> >>
> >> We are able to earn as much as we do as software developers
> >> because there is a far greater demand for our services than
> >> supply, and because the results of our labors are HIGHLY
> >> leveraged by the people who pay us. If a company isn't earning
> >> 10x what they're paying us for our time, they're not being
> >> very smart.  If the results of our work were priced like
> >> cereal, then we'd be
> >> earning $10/hr, and the company would be earning 1000x our pay
> >> off our efforts and we wouldn't be having this discussion
> >> about "selling software" because it would be designed to be
> >> consumable, like cereal, and sell for $5 per use.
> >>
> >> -David
> >>
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