The creative industries have been seen to become increasingly important to economic well-being, proponents suggesting that “human creativity is the ultimate economic resource,” and that “the industries of the twenty-first century will depend increasingly on the generation of knowledge through creativity and innovation.

Software can be developed for a variety of purposes, the three most common being to meet specific needs of a specific business,  to meet a perceived need of some set of potential users, or for personal use. Embedded software development, that is, the development of embedded software such as used for controlling consumer products, requires the development process to be integrated with the development of the controlled physical product.