Doug Carlston - Software People. An Insider’s Look at the Personal Computer Software Industry

Whatever the social impact of the software revolution may turn out to be in the long run, the software people I have known are delighted that it began during their lifetimes. In fact, most of them can’t imagine what their lives would be like right now if it hadn’t been for that revolution. Most of them expect to be exploring the frontiers of new technology five and ten years from now. People don’t change that much. Sometimes history spotlights them for a while before the focus of events moves on to something else. The shakeout was the end of the microcomputer software gold rush, but by no means was it the end of the software industry.

What is the software industry really like, once the dangerous delusions are stripped away? If you remove the rose-colored glasses, peel away the whitewash, and discount the extravagant rags-to-riches tales of some of the participants, what you will find is a decent industry, filled with good and fascinating people, that usually offers better-than-average growth and average rates of return on investments. It is a very volatile industry and will continue to be volatile and less than totally predictable, in part because it depends upon creative efforts (like the film, record, and book industries) and in part because it is a secondary marketplace that follows and reacts to changes in the hardware marketplace.

Still, microcomputer software publishing is fundamentally a fair industry. By that I mean that it isn’t completely controlled by corporate marketing giants. Anyone who comes up with a great product can be a part of this industry, and that’s what makes this particular business—and the people in it—so special.