This paper is based on the view that the adoption of service oriented architectures (SOA) by large information system (IS) vendors might push software development towards an industrialized mode of operation. The emergence of such a software ecosystem is analyzed through an innovation perspective. The special nature of software as an intellectual technology, thus being an intangible product as opposed to physical products, is given special emphasis. Since digital products are expensive to produce, but cheap to reproduce, it is argued on the basis of a resource-based view that this ecosystem should not solely be built on the trading of software, but also on the exchange of business knowledge.