Next Tuesday will see the official opening of Digital Lifeware, Australia's fist Manufacture on Demand (MOD) software store.

The store, located at the Westfield mall in Bondi Junction, claims to offer the widest range of software available in a single store.

Customers can browse an electronic catalogue and select from a range of educational, multimedia, office and entertainment applications and have a physical copy manufactured on the spot. Alternatively, customers can arrange to have a copy sent to them.

“You simply click on the titles you want and we burn them for you," said Digital Lifeware MD Rhett Sampson in a statement.

"We print a high quality cover and manuals, pop them in a DVD case and you have a legal, premium quality, physical product to take home or have delivered to you. With the help of Lifeware’s staff, you can select a product that will be entertaining as well as educational, whilst ensuring that there is no time or money wasted downloading, exhausting your broadband, or worrying about copyright and licensing.”

One advantage of this model for consumers is that the store will never be out of stock. The obvious advantage to Lifeware is that the manufacturing, distribution and stock chain has been completely bypassed.

The underlying system, dubbed SoftWide, was developed by Tribeka in the UK.