Until Microsoft came along and cleaned house, no one in technology thought that there was money to be made from software.  It was all about chips and hardware, I suppose.

Of course, we know the rest of the story: MSFT came along, wrote code and sold millions of copies of the product, updated it sporadically and now makes something like $1B in free cash flow each month.  Yet some people say that it’s dead.  If that’s being dead, call a mortician, please.

Earlier today, I wrote something about GE’s new media fund and asked if MSFT would get back into the content biz. 

Literally within minutes, a reader who shall remain nameless emailed me to ask: are you saying that content is the new software?

Yes, indeed I am.  In all fairness, I was not saying that at the time.  But in light of “software as a service” trends (not a fad, certainly a trend) and the lowered cost of developing software, I certainly do think that - gasp - software has been made into a less lucrative trade.

However, with the surge in online advertising, I think that content is the new cash cow.  Think about it: you can no longer do what you use to be able to with software.  But if you set aside your bias of content, and think of what it was about software that you liked about it, then indeed, content is the new software…

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