GLOBALIZATION OF SOFTWARE SUPPLY-AND-DEMAND

During the mainframe era, software grew to become a major factor of bu siness, government and military operations. Mainframe software develop ment favoured the industrialised nations such as the United States bec ause of the high levels of investment needed for the mainframe compute rs themselves, and also because of the specialised data centres, cooli ng systems and power supplies that mainframes required. Personal compu ters and industrial microcomputers are changing the situation dramatic ally. The capital investment required to supply a programming staff wi th personal computers is almost trivial. Software development in the f uture can be carried out almost anywhere in the world. Software is a c omparatively 'green' industry that is not harmful to the environment a nd uses little in the way of natural resources. Many countries are now entering the commercial software domain, and this trend should accele rate in the 21st century. Software usage and consumption are also expa nding rapidly on a global basis.