10 years ago software was developed by people in small cubicals coding all day.

Ok, maybe thats a little bit of an exaggeration, but for the most part software companies pumped out a new product every year that had new features that the users of their software just had to have. The software companies didn’t really have that much interaction with their client.

Software development today is rapidly changing today. Software is built to accomadate what the user really needs not what the developer thinks the user needs. Software companies like Macromedia ask their user base what features they want in the software, what they think the software needs. Even companies like Apple & Microsoft are getting more open with their software development; both of those big companies have created blogs for their internet browsers asking users and developers what they want to see in the new versions of their software.

I think this is a trend we will start to see more and more as time goes on, especially with all the open-source software starting to challenge commercial software companies- those paid engineers are really going to have to start asking the user what they want instead of guessing.