In the phone industry, we became barraged by long-distance carriers and a multitude of options.

In the utility industry, many of us are, for the first time, having to choose from options we don't really want to understand.

When a patent expires on a drug we now have a plethora of generic drugs to choose from.

In all cases, the options and complexity grows. The prices also come down.

The same thing is about to happen in the software industry.

New tools and capabilities make building, selling and delivering Web-based software solutions accessible to a much wider audience. A material percentage of the software requests we see every day are from folks who, just five years ago, would have had a tough time getting into the software business.

If you want to get into the software business, a revolution is about to happen; get on it. If you want to have simpler, faster software choices for your organization, you might be in for a rough ride.

But if history is a guide, the good news is that the end result of this revolution should be more quality and lower prices.

Treff LaPlante is president and chief executive officer of Carlisle-based WorkXpress.