Telecom Italia cut back on Sun servers by adopting the software of Critical Path Inc. for 10 million e-mail accounts.

FORBES: On The Cover

Telecom Italia cut back on the need for Sun servers by adopting the software of Critical Path for 10 million e-mail accounts.

FORBES: Top Stories

But for those not yet willing to shell out thousands of dollars for their own home 3D-printer, Shapeways offers another path to bring software models into reality, asking consumers and retailers to upload their designs shipping the results back to them, printed on high-end machines with a level of precision and in materials that no consumer 3D printer can yet achieve.

FORBES: Inside The World's Biggest Consumer 3D Printing Factory (Video)

In the past, the career path of a gifted software programmer in a poor country inevitably led to a local conglomerate.

ECONOMIST: Conglomerates in developing countries

The other is to block the electronic path to objectionable material with filtering software.

ECONOMIST: China and the Internet

Maybe the surest path to profitability is indeed selling software to cable and satellite companies.

ENGADGET: Ten years of TiVo: how far we haven't come

While other entrepreneurs focused on using the Web to revolutionize commerce, Vignette set out early (1995) on a quicker path to profits: designing off-the-shelf software that would make all those new outlets work.

FORBES: Automating the Web

Since Microsoft is following the same path with Windows 8, we are witnessing quite literally the end of software distribution freedom.

FORBES: Apple's Mac OS Lockdown To End Developer Independence