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The Software History Center is dedicated to preserving the history of the software industry, one of the largest and most influential industries in the world today. The industry originated with the entrepreneurial computer software and services companies of the 1950s and 1960s, grew dramatically through the 1970s and 1980s to become a market force rivaling that of the computer hardware companies, and by the 1990s had become the supplier of technical know-how that transformed the way people worked, played and communicated every day of their lives. The SHC is working to preserve for future generations information about the companies, people, products, and events that shaped the evolution of this vital industry.
The following is a brief overview of each of the first three decades in the history of the software industry including links to lists of companies founded in each of those decades.

The IEEE Annals of the History of Computing is a quarterly publication which features scholarly articles by leading computer scientists and historians, as well as firsthand accounts by computer pioneers. Software History Center founders Luanne Johnson and Burt Grad served as guest editors for the Winter (Jan-Mar) 2002 special issue which focuses on the emergence of software products companies in the 1960s.

The software pioneers whose stories are told in this issue include Walter Brown, John Cullinane, Frank Dodge, Marty Goetz, Peter Harris, Bob Head, Lee Keet, Ken Kolence, Dale Learn, Bill Newcomer, Tom Nies, Joe Piscopo, and Larry Welke. Articles about IBM unbundling in 1969 were by Burt Grad, Watts Humphrey and Emerson Pugh.