What is software development?

It is difficult to come to an exact definition of software development. However, if one were to try to define it from a beginning point to an end point, software development could be defined as the process of converting a customer need into a final product. This involved some commonly knows steps such as requirements gathering, specifications requirements and design, high level and low level design, coding (development), verification (testing), alpha testing, beta testing, customer acceptance, product marketing plans design and development, shrink wrapped retail chain, and so on. In addition, there are numerous other steps involved such as configuration management, legal overview, pricing strategies, software development models, and so on.
I will be writing more about a number of such strategies and processes.