[MUSIC] Welcome to the third module on digital business models, in this module we'll discuss how and why developers are emerging as the new decision makers. Software is eating the world, as venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously said in 2011, he explained it as follows. Six decades into the computer evolution, four decades since the invention for the microprocessor and two decades into the rise of the modern Internet, all of the technology required to transform industries through software finally works and can be widely delivered at global scale. We now see that software is becoming a competitive advantage in industry after industry. Today, most businesses in media, games, finance, transportation, advertising and sports are using software to improve operations, optimize their supply chain and improve the customer experience. In these industries, a company not using software cause the organization is choosing to make itself uncompetitive. Imagine, a media business without a digital presence. A games company not developing Apple or Android games. A financial institution not using software for high frequency trading. Imagine transportation company not using software to route its fleet of vehicles. Imagine an advertising company not using software to track the online behavior of its users. Today businesses in healthcare, construction, agriculture, retail estate, banking, education, tourism are finding they need to use software to remain competitive. Tomorrow businesses in chemical goods, energy, fashion, pharmaceutics, and even mining, will be using software to remain competitive. Software is indeed eating the world. So for developers, are at the center of self renovation, it's not just that, many modern competitive battles have been won by attracting developers. Take for example Microsoft Windows, which emerged as the dominant operating system in the 1990s and 2000s because of its superior developer strategy. Apple OS and Android, took the number one spot from Nokia and Blackberry in smartphones, because of being the first to build thriving developer ecosystems around their platforms. Salesforce took the number one spot from Oracle and CRM and now has twice the market share of it's closest competitors. Salesforce had 2.8 million registered developers in 2016. Under Armour is a fashion brand, that uses developers to engage communities of athletes, developers use the Under Armour as the decade, create engaging cross platform experiences for web mobile and web devices. But let's take a step back, who are these software developers? Aside from developers seeing traditionally as a code engineer, a person who is involved with the design, development and testing of software code. The definition of a software developer expanded significantly with the smartphone era, that is since 2007. Normal apps now need not just to function well, they need to differentiate among millions of other apps. They need to live up to the high visual design standards set by Apple. Developers now need to engage and retain the user past the first use of the app, developers therefore I know just coders. They often need skills in user interface design, marketing and custom support. Developers need no half coding skills either, software tools have improved massively over the last ten years. They're now software development tools, that do not require any knowledge of coding. You can build a website code free with development tools from squarespace.com. You can build a code free app with appmachine.com and you can program your thermostat to talk to your car and the weather forecast via ifttt.com, again without using any code. Developers can work in an industry, from gangs to healthcare, to every culture. You will find developers wherever software needs to integrated and created within an organization. Developers build software for the very diverse spectrum of competing devices, from mobile apps, to websites, to desktop apps and cloud or backends services. Developers also program interns of things devices such as, a thermostat, a car, a navigation system or retail people tracking service. Developers can be hobbyists, students, entrepreneurs, professionals, as well as managers. We'll examine the different types of developers later in this module. Now let's consider a different question, how important are developers? Developers are often seen as sitting at the bottom of an organization as lacking decision making power. In the traditional definition of information technology, decisions are taken at the very top of the organization typically by the CIO, that is the Chief Information Officer. The CTO, IE, Chief Technology Officer or the vice president of engineering. However, developers at the midland bottom organization are still the first to try out a new piece of software. In the rapidly changing technology landscape the developers are usually the best informed and thus end up framing the decisions taken by the CIO or the CTO. They're the endorsers or validators for software buying decisions, taken much higher up. Effectively, developers decide what software not to buy and generate the choice of the software to buy, as a result, software companies have to win over developers first, even if they don't make the final purchase decision. In other words, developers are the new decision makers. In the next lesson, we'll look at the landscape of developer platforms that developers use.
