--- title: Software companies buying software: a story of... description: The software industry is undergoing a fundamental shift from building technology in-house to buying it from specialized vendors. What started with cloud... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/software-companies-buying-software-a-story-of-ecosystems-and-vendors-a5rbotmsv twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Software companies buying software: a story of ecosystems and vendors | daily.dev og:description: The software industry is undergoing a fundamental shift from building technology in-house to buying it from specialized vendors. What started with cloud... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/software-companies-buying-software-a-story-of-ecosystems-and-vendors-a5rbotmsv og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/a5rbOtmsv.png og:image:alt: Software companies buying software: a story of ecosystems and vendors og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Software companies buying software: a story of ecosystems and vendors **[Erik Bernhardsson](https://daily.dev/sources/erikbernhardsson)** · 15 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The software industry is undergoing a fundamental shift from building technology in-house to buying it from specialized vendors. What started with cloud infrastructure has expanded to every layer of the software stack — from databases and observability to AI APIs. This 'vendorization' trend explains why new startups grow faster (they buy rather than build), why large tech companies have had layoffs (they no longer need armies of engineers to build internal tools), and why top engineer salaries are rising (engineers at vendor companies have outsized ecosystem impact). Open source is declining as a business model as fully-hosted multi-tenant APIs prove more economically viable. AI accelerates this trend further due to GPU costs favoring multi-tenancy and FOMO driving adoption. The author argues this mirrors centuries of supply chain specialization and will continue to deepen. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The Return of Custom Software: Why the Post-SaaS Era Looks a Lot Like 2005](https://daily.dev/posts/the-return-of-custom-software-why-the-post-saas-era-looks-a-lot-like-2005-xbpmbhnaz) · Netguru · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI agents are starting to eat SaaS](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-agents-are-starting-to-eat-saas-wqgdortti) · Hacker News · 5 upvotes · 0 comments - [Build vs Buy When Building Just Got Cheap](https://daily.dev/posts/build-vs-buy-when-building-just-got-cheap-bxumyqpbm) · Tech Lead Digest · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [SaaS in, SaaS out: Here’s what’s driving the SaaSpocalypse](https://daily.dev/posts/saas-in-saas-out-here-s-what-s-driving-the-saaspocalypse-cxmzyvh5m) · TechCrunch · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#cloud](https://daily.dev/tags/cloud) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/software-companies-buying-software-a-story-of-ecosystems-and-vendors-a5rbotmsv) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Software companies buying software: a story of ecosystems and vendors","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/software-companies-buying-software-a-story-of-ecosystems-and-vendors-a5rbotmsv","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/software-companies-buying-software-a-story-of-ecosystems-and-vendors-a5rbotmsv"},"datePublished":"2026-03-26T08:36:20.077Z","dateModified":"2026-03-26T08:39:34.736Z","description":"The software industry is undergoing a fundamental shift from building technology in-house to buying it from specialized vendors. 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