One such pattern I noticed five years ago or so was that companies were having a harder time making money from software. Not a hard time, precisely – Microsoft and others were effectively still printing money through the up-front sale of bits – but harder. Traditional software companies were facing stiff competition from SaaS-players and open source.

I had the opportunity to read Steve’s latest book wihle he was putting the finishing touches on it. Like his previous book, The New Kingmakers, this is a thought-provoking must-read for those of us in the software industry.