A perspective on innovation in the Software industry in a BusinessWeek’s article. It seems that we are living a shift concerning the place where you can find the real pioneer: not anymore by the big companies, but actually by the small entities which are finding new ways of developping/creating software.

Over the last 50 years, anyone who wanted a sense of the future of business computing could simply look at what the heavy hitters were doing. Building or buying new systems required a lot of capital, and only the largest and best-funded companies could afford cutting-edge technology. Smaller organizations would wait until costs came down, then follow dutifully in the footsteps of the big guys.

But that old pattern is being turned on its head. Today, many of computing’s pioneering customers are small or midsize organizations without a lot of cash. They consist of not only businesses but also nonprofits, government agencies, and schools.

They still need to pinch pennies, but instead of waiting patiently for the prices of new systems to come down, they’re taking an altogether different route. They’re inventing a new model of computing built on cheap commodity hardware, free open-source software, and utility services supplied over the Internet.

This comparison is quite interesting:

The IT developments mirror what happened with electricity a century ago. In the early years of industry’s electrification, small companies had to stand on the sidelines as larger counterparts constructed expensive private generators to power their machinery. But then, as electric utilities popped up, the smaller outfits purchased kilowatts over the new public grid first. They may not have realized it at the time, but they were defining the future of electricity in business.