Today, more than ever, software is the lifeblood not only of the technology industry, but businesses from accounting to transportation. In market after market, Marc Andreessen’s observation that software is eating the world is playing out. Software is the difference between success and obsolescence, and those who create it have become the industry’s new kingmakers. This unprecedented strategic importance has led many to assume that the realizable commercial value and margins attached to software are indefinitely sustainable and that sellers of software have the same opportunities their predecessors did.

Software’s immense strategic importance, however, has obscured a more problematic reality: software is only becoming more difficult to monetize on a stand-alone basis. Drawing upon years of in depth conversations with software companies and analysis of their markets, The Software Paradox explores the counterintutive idea that software’s realizable commercial value is headed in the opposite direction of its market importance.

How did we get here? How did something so critically important become simultaneously more difficult to sell? The Software Paradox examines the commercial software business, its future and provides suggestions for adapting to a new economic reality.

You can purchase The Software Paradox at the bookseller of your choice now, including Amazon, iBooks, O’Reilly or Powell’s.