Sometimes you store firmware in one firm medium and then transfer it to another medium for faster execution or to extract some other benefit. Nevertheless, if the "?ware" is "there" before the power is turned on, it's probably firmware. I've already stated that the boundaries are somewhat blurred by the fact that one can use flash (serial, parallel, whatever ...) memory in its various forms as mass-storage.

However, I'll stick with my original premise that, if you can't execute the "?ware" directly from its storage medium, but have to "do something" to move it into a medium from which you can, not because you choose for performance or other reasons, but because is simply can't be done directly then it's probably not firmware. When I said the matter was somewhat "blurred," I was thinking about the guy who build an interface that, on power-up, copied Compact Flash content into RAM and executed it there, having mapped the RAM into code space.

Nevertheless, the stuff that's "there" when the reset signal goes low, and the MCU starts executing instructions, is FIRMWARE. If it's loaded from some external medium, by means, no doubt, of resident firmware, it's SOFTWARE.

RE