Software: Still a Teenager

As someone who's spent much of her career in the software biz, it's kind of a relief to have no less than Steve Mills tell us that "the software industry is ... definitely not reaching maturity or commodity status."

His Viewpoint column in a recent BusinessWeek article reports:

According to the NVCA [National Venture Capital Association], software was the leading venture-capital investment in 2004, with $5.1 billion invested, or 24% of all venture-capital dollars. That's not the investment profile of a contracting market. Expansion is fueled by programming standards and open-source software, which lower the barriers to entry.

Nice way to end the week.