Just a small post by Seth Godin, but he really nails the importance of the data over the software. He also hint to a fully web aware desktop. I don’t know if it is going to be on the desktop, but having a word processor web aware could be very helpful. I’ve developed a reflex whenever I hesitate between two phrasing, I Google both. I’ll use the one with the most results. Sometimes I even do it for syntax checks. I want this built-in.
Software is as critical to computers as breathing is to humans. But, DATA is less important. Data is similar to INFORMATION. If zero DATA is supplied to a computer, it will give zero as an answer. On the other hand, a computer without SOFTWARE is only a physical thing without any functionality (or usefulness).
Yes you are right software is critical. But with open source what we see is less and less software lock in. What is starting to exist more and more is data lock in. Do you think Facebook is valuable because of their software or their data?