3 Mar 2010
Evolving into a platform
Every tech company eventually becomes a platform-provider.
Well, not really, but it’s a viable strategy of growth (cue Ballmer jumping up and down and screaming “Developers, Developers, Developers”). It’s easy to see how a company can get a slice of a bigger market by building a platform for others to innovate on, rather than providing those innovations in a specific application market themselves.
For an outsider looking at Google (remember, I never speak for my employer!), the fact that they’ve invested so much time in providing a lightning-fast Javascript engine (called V8) indicates their commitment to providing developers with a compelling platform to build on.
There are tons of counter examples for sure - Adobe, for instance is not a platform company, although they do have a very successful platform for web graphics, namely, Flash.
Are there any current trends that you see in the web application market, where the company behind that particular application might grow by becoming a platform? Is becoming a platform even always possible in every app domain?
