The U.S. Software Industry:
W. Edward Steinmueller · 1996
Abstract Over the past fifty years innovations in semiconductors, data storage devices, computer architecture, software, and data communications have revolutionized information collection, storage, processing, and distribution, creating new industries and transforming industries inherited from past industrial eras. Explanations of this revolution in information technology have focused on the extraordinary reductions in the cost of the hardware components,1 largely to the neglect of the role of computer software in these developments. Nonetheless, every application of information tech nology has required complementary “software”--computer instructions that transform the tabula rasaof computer hardware into machines that perform useful functions.