Sharing Lego blocks: Modular software reshapes the computing landscape - Technology - International Herald Tribune

Sharing Lego blocks: Modular software reshapes the computing landscape - Technology - International Herald Tribune: "The Internet is entering its Lego era.

Blocks of interchangeable software components are proliferating on the Web, and developers are joining them together to create a potentially infinite array of useful new programs. This new software represents a marked departure from the inflexible, at times unwieldy, programs of the past, which were designed to run on individual computers.

As a result, computer industry innovation is rapidly becoming decentralized. In the place of large, intricate and self-contained programs like Microsoft Word, written and maintained by armies of programmers, smaller companies, with just a handful of developers, are now producing pioneering software and Web-based services. These new services can be delivered directly to PCs or even to cellphones. Bigger companies are taking note.

For example, Google last month bought Writely, a Web-based word-processing program created by three Silicon Valley programmers. The Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, said that Google did not buy the program to compete against Microsoft Word. Rather, he said, it viewed Writely as a key component in hundreds of products it is now developing.

These days, there are inexpensive or free software components speeding the program-writing process. Amazon recently introduced an online storage service called S3, which offers data storage for a monthly fee of 15 cents a gigabyte. That frees a programmer building a new application or service on the Internet from having to create a potentially costly data storage system.

Google now offers eight programmable components - elements that other programmers can turn into new Web services - including Web search, maps, chat and advertising. Yahoo o"