Good question. I am looking at the same thing. I am looking at this company out of Florida that is about to go public that my broker told me about. (Yes I use a broker occasionally, but just another tool for information) <g>. The company, Galacticomm Technologies is a software company with a long history of online software development. This is just one company I am looking at and is not an endorsement either way. Being new to software company investing, the broker told me that what you need to look at is longevity of the company and its current technology and future plans for the technology and the research that is going on in the company, and not really look at the bottom line.
That is what I am doing with this and the other companies I am looking at. Now for me, I don't know the technology, so I enlisted some of my techie friends to help evaluate the software that they produce and the future plans. We looked at their web sites, looked at the prosepectuses, called the sales departments of the companies and asked questions like a potential customer
The company I mentioned, and one other company seems to have a real handle on the software that is needed for the online world.
Again, this is not an endorsement just an example on what I am doing when researching a software company, and the software industry and tech stocks are new to me.