A person who designs and writes software. The term generally refers to designers and programmers in the commercial software field. However, it may also refer to professionals developing internal business applications within an enterprise.
Software Is All About Developing
Software is mostly a service industry, and it is all about developers and developing, which consumes almost all the time and resources of the software company. This contrasts with computer hardware or any other industry that makes equipment, wherein manufacturing is a major part of the business.
The manufacturing constituent in software involves making CD-ROM or DVD packages for distribution, which is a minuscule part of the business by comparison. Complete packages cost only a dollar or two, and if delivered online, distribution costs are practically nil. New versions cause a change in packaging, but this is still a minor cost compared to other industries that produce tangible products. See software engineer and systems programmer.
Software Is All About Developing
Software is mostly a service industry, and it is all about developers and developing, which consumes almost all the time and resources of the software company. This contrasts with computer hardware or any other industry that makes equipment, wherein manufacturing is a major part of the business.
The manufacturing constituent in software involves making CD-ROM or DVD packages for distribution, which is a minuscule part of the business by comparison. Complete packages cost only a dollar or two, and if delivered online, distribution costs are practically nil. New versions cause a change in packaging, but this is still a minor cost compared to other industries that produce tangible products. See software engineer and systems programmer.
 | Reproduced with permission from Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. Copyright (c) 1981-2009 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. |
Additional Resources
- Microsoft puts more Azure cloud plumbing in place
- Microsoft is continuing to lay the groundwork for the commercial version of its Azure cloud environement, rolling out a new content delivery network CDN capability, as well as the November update to its Azure developer services. by Mary Jo Foley
- Blog posts 2009-11-06
- New Epic 3D game engine toolset: Fabulous, fun, and free!
- Creation of content for UT3, GoW, etcUnforunately this new toolset doesn't allow creation of context for existing UE3 engine games, like UT3 and GoW. There is information regarding this on Epic's forums.Not so fabulous and fun anymore. Epic FAIL, Epic.Um, dude......that's harsh. They gave away the whole damn...
- Discussion threads 2009-11-05
- Radialix 2.09.03 (Windows)
- Radialix 2 is an easy, technically elegant tool for binary localization of applications and resource files. It allows the user to localize executable files (PE32, PE32+), .NET assemblies, resources and INI files. The program offers a convenient WYSIWYG editor and a powerful arsenal of productivity tools, such as translation simulation,...
- Software downloads 2009-11-05
- Google Chrome dev 4.0.229.1 (Mac)
- Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the Web faster, safer, and easier. Use one box for everything--type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and Web pages. Thumbnails of your top sites let you access your favorite pages...
- Software downloads 2009-11-05
- Bugzilla 3.4.3 (Mac)
- Bugzilla is the leading open-source/free software bug tracking system, with high-profile installations at mozilla.org (250,000 entries), Gnome, Red Hat and NASA, among others. It features a comprehensive set of fields, attachment management, inter-bug dependencies, email notification of changes, a powerful query interface, reporting, and web, xml, email and console interfaces....
- Software downloads 2009-11-05
- Motorola and Palm; will 2009 be designated as a comeback year?
- wrongwell matthew, because you have been wrong consistently about the smartphone market the last few years i would argue they are both doomed, when you like them. the pre doesn't help palm as it should regardless of critical acclaim and motorola will participate in the race to the bottom (margin...
- Discussion threads 2009-11-04
- Images: Mickey Mouse, behaving badly
- Scheduled for a fall 2010 release, Disney's Epic Mickey is a re-imagining of the iconic cartoon character in an adventure-platforming game for the Wii designed by well-known developer Warren Spector. by CNET News.com
- Image galleries 2009-11-04
- Canadian organization enables peer-to-peer carbon comparisons
- Canadian industry group National Quality Institute and developer/advocacy group Zerofootprint creates carbon benchmarking tool for members. by Heather Clancy
- Blog posts 2009-11-03
- Google Wave: Has potential, but let loose too soon
- Open sourceKeep in mind that the code to developers is completely open source. If someone wants to make their own wave software or use the real time HTML 5 support for something else.Besides this is just a preview of the basics. Open to only 100,000 people, you can't expect much....
- Discussion threads 2009-11-03
- Chrome 4.0 gets beta release
- Google introduced the bookmark sync feature for the developer-preview version in August, and now it is also in the better-tested beta version, Chrome 4.0.223.16. More people will get a chance to try out bookmark synchronization with Monday's release of a beta version of Google Chrome for Windows. ...
- News items 2009-11-03
- Celerity 7.8 (Windows)
- Celerity is a powerful application for analyzing C/C++ files.It can process millions of source code lines. It supports standard C/C++ (and K&R style of sources as well). For each project, it shows the source files, include files, source and include files, indices of lexical elements, includes, include-by's, all macros, macros...
- Software downloads 2009-11-03
- News to know: Microsoft store; Domain names; Blackberry Storm2; VoIP; Android
- Here are today's notable headlines. You can get News To Know via email alert and RSS daily. For continuous updates see BNET's around-the-Web tech coverage.: Robin Harris: A visit to Microsoft's first store Zack Whittaker: Web addresses to extend to non-English languages...
- Blog posts 2009-11-02
- FmPro Migrator 5.28 (Mac)
- FmPro Migrator quickly and accurately migrates FileMaker Pro database structure and data to MySQL, Oracle, Access, SQL Server, Sybase, DB2, OpenBase, PostgreSQL, FrontBase, SQLite and Valentina. Converts Microsoft Access Tables/Fields, Forms/Reports, Relationships, Queries and Visual Basic code to FileMaker. Converts FileMaker Pro databases to Microsoft Access (Forms/SubForms/Reports and Visual Basic)...
- Software downloads 2009-11-02
- Mozilla Firefox 3.6 beta 1 (Mac)
- Firefox 3.6 beta 1 Namoroka is the first developer milestone of the next release of Firefox. Namoroka is built on pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.2 platform, which forms the core of rich internet applications such as Firefox. Please note that this release is intended for developers and testers only....
- Software downloads 2009-11-02
- Mozilla Firefox 3.6 beta 1 (Windows)
- Firefox 3.6 beta 1 Namoroka is the first developer milestone of the next release of Firefox. Namoroka is built on pre-release version of the Gecko 1.9.2 platform, which forms the core of rich internet applications such as Firefox. Please note that this release is intended for developers and testers only....
- Software downloads 2009-11-02
- Google "attacking" developer community?
- No.Improving their apps doesn't make them evil.Killing competition by giving away apps for "free" makes them evil.Isn't it a bit hypocritical to complain?After all Android developers are using Android which they didn't need to pay for because Google gave it to them. Where do they think those development funds...
- Discussion threads 2009-11-01
- Google "attacking" developer community?
- So, as most people are happy that Google continues to build new features into their applications -- like Google Maps Navigation and Google Latitude -- there are others who aren't so impressed. Some people are upset that Google is building features that have already been developed by Android developers,...
- Blog posts 2009-11-01
- Apple Xcode 3.2.1 (Mac)
- Xcode 3.2.1 is an update release of the developer tools for Mac OS X. This release provides bug fixes in gdb, Interface Builder, Instruments, llvm-gcc and Clang optimizer, Shark, and Xcode and must be installed on Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and higher. Xcode defaults to upgrading an existing...
- Software downloads 2009-11-01
- Microsoft to drop Office Accounting product, services
- DumbWhat a dumb move their Accounting software was one of the best products they had.Anyone notice a trend?Dumping Money, dumping Office Accounting, and all at a time when the Feds are increasingly regulating Financial firms. While MS is clearly not a "Financial" Company it looks alot like they are...
- Discussion threads 2009-10-30
- Registry Workshop 4.2.3 (Windows)
- Registry Workshop is an advanced registry editor. It is a perfect replacement for RegEdit and RegEdt32, which shipped with Windows. In addition to all the standard features, Registry Workshop adds a variety of powerful features that allow you to work faster and more efficiently with registry related tasks. Whether you're...
- Software downloads 2009-10-30
Neighboring Terms
Premier Vendor Content Whitepapers, webcasts & resources from our Power Center Sponsors
Popular Sanity Saver Videos
