Today, the computer and software are all around us, and in ten years it will be everywhere, in everything from our light bulbs to our clothes. Microsoft didn t become powerful by making physical things. It made software, the digital stuff that makes computers useful. You cannot touch or hold software. Most software you license, rather than own.
Software is a very different entity to physical products.
It obeys different rules. Software is digital and all things digital are made up of 1s and 0s, rather than atoms, which make up all things physical. Every word, every sentence, every number, is made up of sequences of these 1s and 0s. Software because of its inherent flexibility is endlessly reproducible at minimal cost. It is so easy to copy these sequences of 1s and 0s.