The development of software industry: a comparative analysis on China and foreign countries

By a comparative analysis on the software industries in US, India, Japan, Israel, Ireland, and China, in combination with an empirical study on software industry in Hangzhou area, this paper discusses some essential issues in the development of China software industry. It is pointed out that China software industry are facing the problems of relative small scale and low productivity, therefore an important policy direction is promoting the clustering growth and economies of scale in China software industry. At the same time, China software industry should adopt the dual industry policy, i.e., focus in local market while export oriented. In this process, governmental authorities should not directly apply the experiences from manufacturing industry development to software industry. These experiences should be adjusted to suit the characteristics and requirements of software industry.