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U.S. software retail sales up in 2007, imaging and graphics up 10 percent

According to an article on CNN software sales in the united states were up by 15% to $3.3 billion on the back of big releases by Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple.
Written by Ryan Stewart, Contributor

According to an article on CNN software sales in the united states were up by 15% to $3.3 billion on the back of big releases by Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple. There are a couple of things I thought were interesting about these numbers. One, it's good to see people still paying for software. As a lot of software moves to the browser I've always thought providing a for-pay desktop client would be a great idea. The numbers are a result of a ton of new software products but it seems like people are willing to pay for compelling software in a variety of areas.

The other thing was the jump in imaging and graphics software. This was actually one of the smaller jumps wth OS software growing by 58% (Vista and Leopard I'd imagine), 41% growth in business software and 13% growth in finance software. Creative tools are obviously a big part of the RIA story and so growth is always good but hopefully the fact that the growth in other areas was so large shows that we have a lot of room to grow the entire RIA market. RIAs probably won't directly take revenue away from areas in business software and finance software but there's a chance that RIAs could take advantage of some of that growth and build revenue from it.

I have no idea what the real correlation between software sales and RIA adoption is but it's all still software when you think about it. Hopefully robust demand for software means more people building and deploying RIAs.

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