Platforms: A Growing Trend

One of the bigger movements has been the move towards platforms. Apple's iPhone app store is one the most celebrated examples. Another one happens to be Salesforce and their corresponding Appexchange. Also there happens to be social networks such as Twitter, Friendfeed, and Facebook among many. There also happens to be additional platforms for larger projects such as those offered by the likes of Google and Amazon.

Some of the most interesting things about these platforms are that they are tremendously popular and have explosive adoption rates by developers and customers. By making very strong platforms with robust offerings via web services, APIs, application, hosting, storage, marketplaces, etc. they lower the barrier of entry for so many talented individuals at price points that are relatively affordable. 

This creates whole new avenues of opportunity for mobile, business, social and many other applications. More importantly it creates a win-win situation for everyone involved. For the companies that create platforms it strengthens their brand, creates and grows communities about their platform, generates new ideas for their businesses, and can ultimately improve their bottom line by leveraging existing assets, creating greater rapport with existing and prospective customers, and opening new revenue opportunities. For developers it allows them to create simple applications for improving their personal income, or to create whole new businesses in domains that they are personally interested in and attached to, or target their offerings to a smaller yet more dedicated audience that has a very high interest level creating more revenue generation, or to allow them the opportunity to become their own business with less start-up costs.

Fundamentally speaking this platform approach raises the bar for many technology oriented groups within existing organizations. In many of today's big businesses, these groups are ill equipped to take advantage of these newer platforms either as partners or how to even create internal private platforms on their own. In their struggle with the new paradigm, the more talented and knowledgeable individuals leave to seek out more rewarding experiences elsewhere. This allows the existing platform vendors to grow because they potentially gain the talent lost from these other companies, and from those comapanies that understand the benefit of these platforms.

While all fine and good from a high level, for every day technology professional this means that they will have to confront the reality of what this trend means to their careers. For example as a project manager do you know how to oversee and deliver on projects that use externally created and hosted services? How about as an operations person do you know how to utilize the tools provided by the platforms to determine how healthy everything is? As a developer you may know how to code, but do you know enough about the platform such that you can avoid the perils of a dynamically scaling platform? 

The platform is here to stay. It is another evolution of past thinking that is taking advantage of advances in technology and a far more mature customer base that is eager and willing to consume them. Those that are willing to change now when the costs are at their lowest will be ones to flourish in the future.