There was a big upswing in software development in the nineties. Prices of personal computers were falling, more and more people were gaining awareness of the internet. Businesses were looking for computerized solutions for their businesses. This upsurge has tapered off and today software development has slowed down. On the other side ecommerce solutions and custom website design has now become the in thing. There are so many ‘canned’ software solutions available that you don’t need any special software developed to manage your business. There were two markets in software development one was the vertical market.
The other was the horizontal market. Vertical markets were those that were typical to an industry like airline reservations, banking, etc. horizontal markets were accounting, payroll, inventory packages. There is not much future in software development as the large software companies employ the best software developers and the others are left out. Many smaller software companies have folded or been merged into larger companies. So the future of software development as a profession has decreased. The future in ecommerce solutions and custom website design is vibrant and expected to grow. As developing websites also require software development skills, information technology students should specialize in mastering these tools.