Zealed Blog

Let’s start the story from the begining.. first there was the industrial revolution (1750-1850), all industries at the time were revolutionized by “technology”. Agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation and even technology was revolutionized by the innovations of the time (steam engines, water wheels, etc). Then there was the second industrial revolution (1850-1920), this revolution gave birth to production lines and mass production. Followed by that there were three periods; the atomic age, the jet age and the space age – these three periods are inter-weaved together and they were characterized by advances in atomic, jet and space technology. The Digital Age – also know as the Computer Age or Information Age – started in the 1970s and it really flourished with the introduction of the personal computer and exploded with the introduction of the world wide web.

Since the 1970s, software started to run everything in our lives even things that you may not know are running on software. From your car engine to the machine controlling the IV drip in hospitals.. Everything runs on software and it’s not going to change for a long time.

A number of industries are being run on software and delivered online from movies to books and from agriculture to national defense and this is happening now because the industry now is being build on top of four decades into the computer revolution and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet. This allows software to be delivered at a global scale.

10 years ago there were 50 million people connected to the internet, nowadays, there are over 2 billion people connected to the global network. 10 years from now, we expect 5 billion people to be connected to the internet every day and all the time thanks to smartphones.

Here are a few examples of why software is everywhere and will even be more ubiquitous in the future:

1. Books: in 2001 Borders decided to leave it’s “online book business” to Amazon because they didn’t believe that it will amount to anything. Amazon now is the largest bookstore on the planet. At the heart of it, it’s a software company that has proven to reinvent itself with the times. Now, the books are even software!
2.  Movies: Blockbuster didn’t move quickly online. Along came Netflix and changed the way people watch movies. Netflix is now the largest video services company. What is interesting is the next step in the cycle which is making companies like TimeWarner and Comcast change their strategies to become software companies to become a part of the idea of “TV anywhere”. There are rumors that Apple is coming up with the iTV which is poised to revolutionise the way consumers watch TV.
3. Music: The largest music companies today are software companies, Apple, Pandora, Spotify. The traditional record companies exist only to provide these companies with content.
4. Entertainment: The fastest growing entertainment companies nowadays are video game companies. They are just software companies in an industry that has doubled in size from $30 billion to $60 billion in the last 5 year! Even within the video games industry, there are tiers of companies; traditional companies like EA and Nintendo are finding their revenue dwindle slightly and newer software only companies like Zynga (makers of Farmville) and Rovio (makers of Angrybirds) are finding their revenues soar.
5. Photography: The industry was eaten by software quite some time ago. it’s hard to buy a phone now that doesn’t have a “software camera”. Photos get upload to the cloud for automatic archiving too with software companies.
6. Direct Marketing: The largest direct marketing company is Google. Others in the space are foursqure, livingsocial, groupon. They are using software to eat into the retail business – an industry that has been traditionally resilient against software.
7. Telecom: The fastest growing telecommunication company of our day is Skype. A software company that was recently bought by Microsoft for $8.5 billion. Traditional telecommunication companies like AT&T and Verizon have survived just by partnering with software companies like Apple.
8. Recruitment: The largest recruitment company is Linkedin. Linkedin is eating nicely in a $400 billion industry
9. Value Chain: Even value chain companies that exist mainly in the physical world are getting affected and embracing software. Cars are now largely run on software that runs the engine, control safety features, entertains passengers, guides the driver to their destination, etc. In the near future, car driving will be controlled by software thanks to initiaves like the Google Driverless Car.
10. Logistics: The largest companies use software to control their logistics and distributions. FedEx and UPS can be viewed as software companies that have trucks and planes as their arms.
11. Mining, Oil & Gas: These dirty industries are using software visualisation to become increasingly efficient in where and how they dig and extract.
12. Finance: The finance industry has been largely transformed by software a few decades ago. Only 8% of the worlds currency is in cash, the rest is electronic transaction that exist only on the internet. The derivatives and trading markets are largely run by software algorithm that analysis and trades on behalf of human beings.
13. Defense: Software now runs fighter jets, tanks, guided missiles, etc. In the future, the modern software will be augmented with software devices that provide second by second intelligence needed to keep the soldier safe.
14. Health Care & Education: These two industries are the last two industries yet to be majorly affected by software especially Education. Education hasn’t changed in the last 100 years and it’s time for clever software companies to innovate in this sector