Software Commoditization
Commoditization of software is long talked about and with standardization which is going on currently; does go with the view that, developers should be replaceable without making much difference to the team velocity. There is a constant endeavor to not to rely to developer's understanding of requirements and development as it impacts performance, schedules, scalability and business requirement to meed it demands. Business demands agility and predictability and it cannot be left totally on developers and hence last decade has seen numerous changes with respect to software development to cater to this requirement.
There have been counter arguments that software can never be commoditized as it is the quality of developers which matters and every developer solves problem uniquely, however with the advent of various platforms especially cloud enablers like aPaaS which includes model driven development, does take away that argument to some extent. For example, the support of multiple languages in the aPaaS supported by engines taking inputs from templates and generate efficient code, making realm smaller for software developers. Similarly, SaaS is a commoditization of business functions. Technology cost to business has come down by 1000x in past decade and especially with the advent of cloud. We have witnessed what infrastructure commoditization has brought us, where previous business models were given up due to market forces and the same in happening right now for software development and it has already happened to some extent.
There were days when coding was taught in universities or in specialized training sessions, however today with the advent of MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses), learning coding is not an area which is exclusive for software developers. To add to it, when hiring is getting global in nature and numerous specialist companies exists today which hire people all over the world for organization's requirements at much cheaper prices, does pose a threat to organization who just copied the business models of successful companies in past decade. There are specialist organization providing software developers working from any part of the world and this is said to be future, especially the way hiring would happen as far as software development is concerned. These companies can be thought of as replacement of HR, if we may say that (recent HBR article does state that it is time to blow up traditional HR and build something new [It’s Time to Blow Up HR and Build Something New. Here’s How]). In case of technology, HR outsourcing is nothing new however renewed HR roles are taking place of old roles and this works in case of tech at lower levels at least with smaller working realm. All this is pointing to a model, where software is not yet a utility but a commodity as still there is a differentiation factor in terms of domain.
Against thinking software as a commodity, there is an argument that when it comes to innovation, software cannot be simply treated as a commodity, however there is a question to be asked here, which is, is the innovative idea one is saying to be game changer, has an entry barrier, significant enough to survive the test of the times. People after observing the success of any idea goes after it and build on it and multiple companies come into lifeline. Thus when it comes to argument of software not being an commodity, especially with respect to innovation, there is a need to check what it takes for competition to enter, and today we see many such companies being floated trying to replicate initial success and if that is the case which it seems it is, then software has already been commoditized (this is what commodization means).
There is always a need for human touch, however the current automation and work getting done to make software develop like a commodity might prove to be a dangerous trend overall because current changes might widen social gaps. Apart from that if new business models do not come into visibility which are focused on productivity rather than just costs, many organization who have started facing the problems because their old business models have stopped working, will start facing bigger threat than just lower revenues. On positive side, there is no doubt with changes going on, today companies can come into existence, scale and innovate faster than ever.
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On higher level, below are few fine read about how automation is effecting other industries and creating bigger social gaps. Innovation being used to create assets, being monetized, creating more transactions to support economy. On other side history has shown us that money never flows uniformly, it widens the gap and create bubbles.
Open Letter on the Digital Economy
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