One of the major challenges for the future relates to software innovations that, in view of the rapid development of the Internet community, can strengthen the economic performance of companies and their networks. Whereas the public perception of innovations generally focuses on the consumer area, the corporate software segment focus on the business area, thereby enabling it to decisively influence the innovative capabilities and the success of companies in all sectors.

The Software-Cluster is therefore pursuing the vision that more and more companies from all sectors will eventually digitize all of their processes and, as a result of this, turn themselves into digital companies. In digital companies, a new form of corporate software – emergent software – will become a driver for innovation and the creation of value.

The digital company

In digital companies, corporate software represents the decisive driver behind product and process innovation. The software industry is currently experiencing a paradigm shift towards open, scalable, service-oriented software platforms, which will form the basis for developing the corporate software of the future:

• Utilization of cloud computing technologies and the support of new and also changing business models, which will be established as a result of this
• Collaborative and cross-company utilization of corporate software, as can already been seen through the proliferation of social networks and corresponding software in the consumer sector
• Integration / utilization of mobile devices for corporate software applications
• Integration of the Internet of Things into corporate software
• Security of corporate software, despite openings due to the above-mentioned innovation

The Internet of the future will allow digital companies to combine their services more easily and implement their business processes more quickly, more dynamically and more flexibly. Furthermore, it will be possible to extend service functionalities by combining powerful solutions. One of the objectives of the Software-Cluster partners' is to help companies in all sectors during the transition to becoming completely digital companies, in which software forms the decisive driver for product and process innovations. In the future, the competitiveness and also the prosperity of industrial and service provider companies will depend on the ability of such businesses to position themselves as digital companies.

Emergent software

Digital companies are, however, only conceivable in connection with the next phase of evolution of corporate software: software that follows the principle of emergence:

"Emergence relates to the spontaneous formation of phenomena or structures at the macro level of a system, based on the interaction of its elements. During this process, emergent properties of the system cannot be clearly traced back to properties of the elements, which display these in an isolated manner." (Source: Wikipedia)

Corporate software that follows this principle is known as emergent software. Emergent software combines a wide range of components from different manufacturers in a dynamic and flexible manner, in order to fulfill the highly complex requirements of digital companies. This software can adapt itself dynamically to the changing requirements of the market as well as the business environment and supports service relationships between companies. It will also enable innovative services to be provided in the Internet of the future.

The intelligent linking of existing offers and the addition of supplementary components and services allows a completely new range of offers to be provided. Users will be able to realize new business models themselves – models that would have been unthinkable during the original development of the components and services. Users of emergent software receive individual solutions "from a single source" – via the simple composition of standard solutions from multiple providers. This means emergent software will be relatively easy to maintain and, furthermore, will not require significant investments on the part of the user. Users will therefore be able to increase the flexibility of their (new and innovative) business models, operate them in a more market-oriented manner, and map them within the software systems.

The result: new services for customers and a significant increase in value for providers and users of corporate software.