While the phrase “Software is Hardware, Hardware is Software” is perhaps not literally true; it does highlight a larger truth: that over time what were once hardware functions have increasingly become software ones.

As part of Om Malik’s writeup of Akimbo’s decision to drop their actual hardware offering and become a software and service player in the online video space he asks if standalone video on demand boxes have a chance?

However, even this shift by Akimbo goes against the larger happenings on the Internet: videocasts, vlogs, etc. It’s an improvement to go from three boxes mediating video to my TV to only one, but a near lateral shift to needing some PC-Like box that needs to run Akimbo, iTunes, NetFlix on Demand and Amazon’s UnBox video service to reach all the video out there.

The real question is: Will the hardware and software ecosystem for Video on Demand end up looking more like AOL or more like the open internet 5, 10, 15 years from now?

[UPDATE 5/7/2007] – David Pogue seems not to like the Akimbo service due to it’s lack of content options.