Basic Intro of the article
Do you ever think the software industry can come to some kind of saturation? Most other fields have structured advancements which now we use as part of implementation. If we take example of car manufacturing in the early days it used to be done mostly by workers with less use of robotics and automation. Cars in those days used to be expensive and used to be used by elite groups of society. Gradually, use of the assembly line improved the mechanism making cars cheaper and better. Now almost all car manufacturing follows efficient processes.
What would saturation look like?
What I personally feel is that saturation won’t be the end of the software industry; rather there will be less innovation in this sector. Robotics, Nanotechnology and Quantum Computing may be the next important fields which might open more scopes and breakthroughs in the software industry. Eventually everything will align towards saturation to give a solution which ultimately will make human life easier.
Let’s take Business Studies as an example. Business Studies used to be thought of as a different and important field. Later Business became important in all fields (mostly towards implementation of theories and domain knowledge). New specialization fields like CA (Chartered Accountant), CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) became superior to the general Business Studies Course which specialized in some core areas.
I expect the Software Industry will see similar results with time. General Programming Knowledge might be compulsory to almost all fields.
Has Saturation already begun?
After the Web was introduced in 1989 prime need was to deliver content. Later it got extended to design, data and ultimately applications. Now the web is about programming, design where user experience is considered to be the ultimate target. Software which is more user-centric is more popular in the market.
Few years back the Operating System was considered the most important tool in the software industry. Microsoft, Apple introduced an OS that revolutionized the desk in almost all offices. Now OS is part of almost every tech gadget like mobile devices, Television, watch, embedded systems etc.
Also, Mobile Operating Systems with applications changed how we interact, buy, work, study, entertain etc.
Now as everything is moving to the cloud, Browser has become the most important program in Operating Systems.
Either OS, Browser or any other software we haven’t seen any breakthrough in this domain. Update is consistent which in some kind can be taken as saturation.
Platforms leading to Saturation
In the early days programming used to be tough. Developers had to write a lot of code even to do simple tasks. Developers had to recursively make use of documentation to solve the problems. With advancements in programming languages things got easier. And now we have platforms like Stack Overflow which have multiple solutions to all our issues. It is saving a lot of time.
There are so many developer oriented platforms like GitHub, Slack etc. These platforms have been successful in providing solutions to so many complex development problems. These platforms have been successful in marking rapid development and efficient maintenance in code.
How long is it going to take to feel saturation on Industry Level?
When we talk about industry it’s about it’s commercial usage and job market. Software has already become an integral part of offices, so it is not going to be replaced by something immediately.
Classical Marketing is not so effective in modern days due to Digital Marketing. Digital Marketing provides leverage to a greater number of audiences using digital marketing. Digital Marketing is a blend of Classical Marketing with usage of Internet Technology.
What if technology automates all Audit tasks? Will CA or CFA courses have the same importance?
Are driving jobs at risk as Self Driving Cars are going to enter streets?
Software industry has been able to replace so many jobs and also come up with so many tech jobs. So it’s hard to predict what will come up next.
What I personally think is Technology is going to be blended in many areas and robots may replace computers to a certain extent. Maybe humans will purchase robot companions rather than laptops. These robots might have artificial intelligence to match human perception.
It is hard to predict the future, but I am personally excited to see how the Software industry evolves with time and if it will ever have some kind of saturation.
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