A business history of the software industry from the days of custom programming to the age of mass-market software and video games.
From its first glimmerings in the 1950s, the software industry has evolved to become the fourth largest industrial sector of the US economy. Starting with a handful of software contractors who produced specialized programs for the few existing machines, the industry grew to include producers of corporate software packages and then makers of mass-market products and recreational software. This book tells the story of each of these types of firm, focusing on the products they developed, the business models they followed, and the markets they served. By describing the breadth of this industry, Martin Campbell-Kelly corrects the popular misconception that one firm is at the center of the software universe. He also tells the story of lucrative software products such as IBM's CICS and SAP's R/3, which, though little known to the general public, lie at the heart of today's information infrastructure.With its wealth of industry data and its thoughtful judgments, this book will become a starting point for all future investigations of this fundamental component of computer history.
"This book is a major step forward in documenting the software industry's history. It contributes structure and content as well as insight and analysis."
--Burton Grad, President, Software History Center
"From a disparate array of sources, Campbell-Kelly deftly and neatly teases out a compelling history of the emergence, structure, and development of the computer software and services sector of the US economy."
--Arthur Norberg, Director, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota
"This book presents an exceptionally clearheaded overview of one of the most important industries of the twentieth century. No other work covers the business dimensions of the software industry so comprehensively or so clearly. It should be the starting point for anyone interested in the history of the software business."
--Steven Usselman, School of History, Technology, and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology
"Campbell-Kelly is the first historian to map the terrain of the software industry, from contractors through corporate products to personal computer software. This pathbreaking book is packed with data and insights that will be valuable to historians of business and technology, as well as analysts of the contemporary software industry. It lays to rest a variety of myths and distortions about the software business, including the over-emphasis on Microsoft that has dominated writing about it to this time."
--JoAnne Yates, Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management, MIT
