Our analysis shows that the two French and Japanese software production systems form a coherent whole and that the strengths and weaknesses of each system are logical extension of the societal characteristics already observed in industrial manufacturing. In Japan, the software industry tends to imitate manufacturing logics with its proper efficiency in producing standardised and material goods, but it doesn't always succeed in doing the same with regard to intangible goods. The software production needs in a sense an unorganised and more control-free invention system. In France, the software companies represent a high quality and ‘artisan-type' production system. French engineers can perform a far-reached technical prowess but fail to co-operate in order to accumulate a collective and shared knowledge and finally to forge a ‘neo-industrialisation' logic of service. As a result, the reconfiguration of organisational and institutional arrangements in software sector is essential, for the two countries, to readjust their production systems to a new technological environment.