What makes software great?

Andre Muscat -

This is best answered by innovation themes that are impacting the future of all industries:

  • The future of work
  • The future of education
  • The future of transportation
  • The future of payments
  • The future of communication
  • The future of ________________

The reality is that software has driven most innovations and advancements in capabilities, connectivity, communication etc. There was a time where the expectation was that every company would be a software company. It then evolved into the expectation that every company will be a data company and an intelligent company driven by the advancements in software and the methodologies and opportunities of better data capturing processing and analysis.

Software and data, and its ability to talk with the world around it through hardware, have transformed our way of doing things and behaving. In some regards, it made it more convenient (e.g. Zoom/MS Teams allowing us to talk to people across the globe within seconds).

Using Palantir as an example company helping industries transform through knowledge management:

This is because the software was the means through which processes could be automated, improved and done better. This does not eliminate the human touch; however, it made the human element more focused and made it better, stronger and faster.

It is flexible, powerful and scalable. It is used to entertain, discover, learn, communicate, and drive interaction capabilities to people who are limited to act through normal physical channels. In many ways, the software has unlocked potential. I understand that with great power we got great challenges too, however, I prefer to focus on the strengths and work to manage the less positive sides of it.

In the context of business, the future belongs to those that put technology at the centre of their outlook, capabilities and leadership mandate:

And if you want to understand what makes software and data great for businesses, analyse its impact across the business assets:

Its impact is profound, and I am sure that with the emerging compute power we are in for some serious innovation in the coming decade!