From an automobile to supercomputers, mobile phones to computer games, business to security, or even health industry, software products are everywhere today. A software is a set of computer programs, instructions and documentation given to an operating system to perform specific tasks. It converts raw, complex data to useful information used for various purposes such as computing, analyzing and communicating. The instructions for any computer software are written in various programming languages like Java, C, C++, COBOL, LISP and Visual Basic. The instructions are loaded in to the computer's storage system (hard drive, memory or RAM) and then executed.

The wholesale software industry has recently evolved as one of the most promising industry in the global arena. The market of software products is continuously growing, and convergence of information, increased computer usage is fueling its growth. Only those computer software manufacturers and software vendors will be successful who are able to adapt their technologies to the changing dynamics of the software industry. USA, India, Russia and Canada are the largest computer software manufacturers, software vendors and software suppliers in the world. Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, SAP and Computer Associates International are the top software vendors in the global software industry. The global market for software products development is worth US$180 billion and the largest marketplace for software products development are USA, Canada, India, China, Germany and Austria.

Based on the applications, software products are broadly classified as: communication software, industrial software. Other popular segments of software products are business software, security software, gaming software and medical software.