[amsheehan]

That may be true for products from the industrial era where the end user isn't directly affected by software.

Companies that want to keep customers (in some cases keep customers alive [cars 'n shit]) are going to have to start caring about software as it becomes the conduit for every interaction their customers have with their products. It's not just social networks that are getting funded now—it's companies that build the previous poster's top five drivers of the US economy. I believe you have to call pretty much any company in those verticals tech companies to some degree.

[coliveira]

Not at all. Companies have a need for all kinds of services unrelated to their main purpose. Technology is just another service. In many cases it is important for them to have software departments, but that has been true for a long time. For example, banks have for more than 30 years relied on technology departments to do business. For all this, banking hasn't become part of the tech industry, and never will because this is not their purpose.

[oldmanjay]

Technology is "just another service" in the modern economy like oxygen is just another element found in our atmosphere.