Developing commercial software is always a challenge. Unless you are continuously developing products for new markets, you're gonna go down. If your focus is on a very specific market, it's really tough to keep selling to the same customers. Once your product reaches a certain level of maturity and stability, many customers will resist upgrading, so your actual pool of potential buyers shrinks. Microsoft always did software developers a bit of a favor, by changing Windows enough that some older software ceased working (with the new O/S); requiring upgrading. However, that only keeps development going for a period of time. Adding features and innovations won't keep you going forever either. The application can become bloated and it affects performance, and most customers become overwhelmed by the options. I was the VP of Applications Development for a commercial fuel distribution software company for 5 years, and was the Applications Development Manager for 2 years before that, and those were the most stressful 7 years of my career. The commercial software development business is TOUGH! I'm not going back to work, but if I did, it wouldn't be in commercial software development.[emoji4]
