Web development companies : Software or Not ?

Is your web development company a software company or not ?

Maybe it’s a straight forward answer for you, whether it’s yes or no, or maybe it’s in this gray area of not-really-sure kinda deals. Well, in the light of some conversations i had lately, and to the people that are saying that web development business is not a software business, I want to say that I feel nothing but disagreement on this topic.

Lets look at what Wikipedia has to say on this :

computer systems divide software systems into three major classes: system software, programming software and application software, although the distinction is arbitrary, and often blurred.

• System software helps run the computer hardware and computer system. It includes operating systems, device drivers, diagnostic tools, servers, windowing systems, utilities and more. The purpose of systems software is to insulate the applications programmer as much as possible from the details of the particular computer complex being used, especially memory and other hardware features, and such as accessory devices as communications, printers, readers, displays, keyboards, etc.
• Programming software usually provides tools to assist a programmer in writing computer programs and software using different programming languages in a more convenient way. The tools include text editors, compilers, interpreters, linkers, debuggers, and so on. An Integrated development environment (IDE) merges those tools into a software bundle, and a programmer may not need to type multiple commands for compiling, interpreting, debugging, tracing, and etc., because the IDE usually has an advanced graphical user interface, or GUI.
• Application software allows end users to accomplish one or more specific (non-computer related) tasks. Typical applications include industrial automation, business software, educational software, medical software, databases, and computer games. Businesses are probably the biggest users of application software, but almost every field of human activity now uses some form of application software

Do you see where I am going with this ? Application software.

The more complex Web 2.0 gets, the more we use all kinds of tricks to make websites better, more useful and more task oriented, the more web development process would become an application software process. Business software companies have been around for many, many years and they have jump through hoops improving the processes of creating a viable software application ( some are still struggling with this though ).

I believe that one major differentiation needs to be made here : In the web world we probably should not think about a service/site as a “release” , or at least not as a piece of software that we forget ( or patch ) after the deployment. Web sites are constantly and instantly deployed to the customers, and our patches are “live” and delivered in real time to the consumer. We tend to look at this as an ever-changing and ever-growing environment that we adapt constantly. There is no – “end” date in the sense of “patch tree is closed at this day” , the border is often blurred for us, since if a feature doesn’t preform as it suppose to, we will fix it asap and we won’t have to “re-deploy” the application. We will “invent” some new feature and will deliver it straight away.

But, on the other hand the process of building a site/service comes closer to application development than ever before. Building a maintainable structure, programming interfaces, connect to some api or providing and api service of a kind is something normal these days. Even using things like “xml over http” type of communications takes it closer to a regular protocol user/client services. There are tons of sites out there like flickr or others that are a great example of this. Unobtrusive java script is not just something that is in fashion now and it will go away after some time. It’s just another key to make better and more complex sites/services that will bring the user closer to what a “web desktop” is going to be ( and I don’t doubt that this is going to happen ).

So, are we software companies or are we web application software companies? I would probably stick with the second statement. It’s more distinguishing and carries more definition of what the new world of web based software companies would be.

Cheers!