Looking back over more than four decades in the software industry — from the earliest days of packaged systems in the 1980s to today’s AI-powered world — one pattern has stood out: technology evolves, but business value never dies quietly. What does change, relentlessly, is how software captures that value.
I began my career in 1985, when “software” was a line item on a capital expenditure sheet and buyers expected to install code on metal they owned. From client-server architectures to the browser era, from ERP waves to SaaS subscriptions, every transition reshaped pricing, contracts, and economics. SaaS pricing became conventional wisdom not because it was perfect, but because it worked — for a while.
Today, with the rise of generative AI agents and tools that can automate tasks previously embedded in enterprise systems, we are at another such inflection point. The question isn’t whether software will survive. It is whether the old assumptions behind how we price and monetize software services still hold.
Why the market panic feels familiar but is misguided
Recently, markets reacted as though a new class of AI tools meant the end of enterprise software as we know it. That reaction reflects anxiety over what
