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In a sense articles like this are useful because making a bold sweeping statement and trying to back it up is a good way of getting strong arguments. On their o

by netcan 14y ago

In a sense articles like this are useful because making a bold sweeping statement and trying to back it up is a good way of getting strong arguments. On their other hand they're treacherous because they encourage us to think in these kinds of terms. You don't want to be thinking of something as high level as "building on someone else's platform" in terms of good or bad. The (boring) truth is, as usual, somewhere in the middle. Like any big decision there are pros and cons. Opportunities and risks. Zynga's Facebook strategy opened up a huge market to them. There are other ways to catch fish of course, they could have built their own social network for example, but you can't say they're not risky. The Facebook bet paid off (so far). Zynga got huge. They still carry a lot of that risk. But now that they're huge they can like the blog mentions try to mitigate it. Maybe they can even turn the tables. Microsoft is the ultimate counter-example. In the first few years, they built on IBM's platform and IBM could have ditched them. But they turned the table. There are no rules. There is no risk free path. It's good to know the risks, but riks are not rules.

netcan 14y ago
The counter-counter example is Apple. No dependencies on anything (relatively speaking). More control over design & production of hardware than hardware companies. Software runs on their own hardware. iOS & OSX devices are complete & useful products out of the box without a need for 3rd party applications. Application markets are controlled and no one application (except maybe MS office) can really affect them. They prefer the internet to the web. Anything else. The examples people are going to think of are mostly going to be building businesses on/in app markets and/or social networks. These are both young spaces. in 5-10 years we're going to have seen spectacular successes & failures. Every one of their stories is going to have the "somebody else's platform" parading as a main character. Sometimes it'll be the hero. Sometimes the villain.
- jt2190 14y ago
  > The counter-counter example is Apple. I disagree that Apple is a good counter-counter example. They started on the CP/M platform, which was proprietary. They were eventually able to develop their own operating system, thanks to the resources that success had given them.
  - masklinn 14y ago
    > They started on the CP/M platform Uh? Aren't you confusing Apple and Microsoft? Apple started with the Apple I, a fully wired circuit board custom-built by Woz. The Apple II was much the same, although it could run CP/M via a dedicated Z-80 expansion card from third parties. On the other hand, Microsoft got started when Allen and Gates wrote a BASIC for the MITS Altair 8800 (not CP/M) then built MS-DOS on top of a CP/M clone (again not CP/M) for the IBM PC contract.
    - mjwalshe 14y ago
      And CP/M was a bit of a clone of RT-11 from DEC fore the PDP 11's. Even some of the untiities where called the same name
    - jt2190 14y ago
      I should have quoted the parent more fully: > No dependencies on anything (relatively speaking). More control over design & production of hardware than hardware companies. Software runs on their own hardware. It's the argument that Apple (in the beginning) had full control of their hardware when they had few/no resources that makes Apple (today) a poor example of how to "do it right" when you're starting a new product. Apple, too, had to navigate in a high-risk market full of established players.
    - jt2190 14y ago
      I was muddling Apple and the other popular personal vendors of the time, many who licensed CP/M. (Commodore comes to mind.)
  - beagle3 14y ago
    Apple ran CP/M? in which universe? It didn't even have the right CPU without an add-on card (which was AFAIK the only way to run CP/M on Apple) Apple I, II{,e,/GS}, III, Lisa, and Mac before OS/X all had proprietary Apple-developed operating systems (in the general sense, including bioses, stuff like Apple DOS, ProDOS, Diversi DOS and others which don't look like modern operating systems). Applesoft basic was originally developed by Microsoft, and I'm sure other things were licensesd - but Apple had tight control of everything from 1978, with few exceptions at the time Jobs was not at the company.
- davidw 14y ago
  I think discussions like this are generally worse off when we talk about all the outliers, even though it's really hard not too, because they're the first thing that spring to mind. IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, etc... are not like ordinary businesses.
  - netcan 14y ago
    I guess that depends on context. Some of the arguments for/against "building on someone else's platform" have to do with the potential to become an outlier.
einhverfr 14y ago
Indeed. I am trying to think of any software company anywhere right now that doesn't build on someone else's platform. I can't think of any. Either they are setting sail on someone's hardware platform or OS (or even kernel and utilities, as Linux distros do), or both. I think the key issue as you say is to keep tabs of the risks and try to manage them. But I don't think it is really possible not to depend on someone else's platform to some extent, well unless you want to write your own cross-platform C compiler and then write your own kernel with it, and then write an operating system surrounding it, and then writing your app..... or give up on the cross-platform bit and just make your own chips too..... I guess that IBM software on AIX on Power might be close to building on your own platform. I don't know if they wrote their own compilers though. But in recent decades even IBM has made noises about abandoning AIX in favor of Linux if they can meet the needs of existing AIX customers.... So maybe it doesn't even work for IBM....
- jonknee 14y ago
  Apple is pretty close. They have their own hardware, OS, kernel and even retail stores. They piggyback on a lot of OSS, but when your developers are all using your hardware with your IDE to make software for your closed platform, it's pretty vertically integrated.
- netcan 14y ago
  I think you need to think of these things in relative terms. It's probably more correct to phrase this "don't take big platform risks." IE, If you build on windows or linux you take the risk of either failing. But you do at least know that they're goal is to be a platform for developers to build on. The risk of sudden changes in the T&Cs turning your business on its head are small, compared to the risk on Facebook, iOS or Twitter for example. Of course everything is built on other things. Even if the software and even hardware is independent, you're stil dependent on the economy. You need copper for your circuits and oil for your plastics and anyone know how to make tools for making tools for making drilling tools? How am I supposed to get fuel without tools for making drilling equipment? Hold on, I'll figure this out I made a flint axe...

by netcan 14y ago

netcan 14y ago

The counter-counter example is Apple. No dependencies on anything (relatively speaking). More control over design & production of hardware than hardware companies. Software runs on their own hardware. iOS & OSX devices are complete & useful products out of the box without a need for 3rd party applications. Application markets are controlled and no one application (except maybe MS office) can really affect them. They prefer the internet to the web. Anything else. The examples people are going to think of are mostly going to be building businesses on/in app markets and/or social networks. These are both young spaces. in 5-10 years we're going to have seen spectacular successes & failures. Every one of their stories is going to have the "somebody else's platform" parading as a main character. Sometimes it'll be the hero. Sometimes the villain.

jt2190 14y ago
> The counter-counter example is Apple. I disagree that Apple is a good counter-counter example. They started on the CP/M platform, which was proprietary. They were eventually able to develop their own operating system, thanks to the resources that success had given them.
- masklinn 14y ago
  > They started on the CP/M platform Uh? Aren't you confusing Apple and Microsoft? Apple started with the Apple I, a fully wired circuit board custom-built by Woz. The Apple II was much the same, although it could run CP/M via a dedicated Z-80 expansion card from third parties. On the other hand, Microsoft got started when Allen and Gates wrote a BASIC for the MITS Altair 8800 (not CP/M) then built MS-DOS on top of a CP/M clone (again not CP/M) for the IBM PC contract.
  - mjwalshe 14y ago
    And CP/M was a bit of a clone of RT-11 from DEC fore the PDP 11's. Even some of the untiities where called the same name
  - jt2190 14y ago
    I should have quoted the parent more fully: > No dependencies on anything (relatively speaking). More control over design & production of hardware than hardware companies. Software runs on their own hardware. It's the argument that Apple (in the beginning) had full control of their hardware when they had few/no resources that makes Apple (today) a poor example of how to "do it right" when you're starting a new product. Apple, too, had to navigate in a high-risk market full of established players.
  - jt2190 14y ago
    I was muddling Apple and the other popular personal vendors of the time, many who licensed CP/M. (Commodore comes to mind.)
- beagle3 14y ago
  Apple ran CP/M? in which universe? It didn't even have the right CPU without an add-on card (which was AFAIK the only way to run CP/M on Apple) Apple I, II{,e,/GS}, III, Lisa, and Mac before OS/X all had proprietary Apple-developed operating systems (in the general sense, including bioses, stuff like Apple DOS, ProDOS, Diversi DOS and others which don't look like modern operating systems). Applesoft basic was originally developed by Microsoft, and I'm sure other things were licensesd - but Apple had tight control of everything from 1978, with few exceptions at the time Jobs was not at the company.
davidw 14y ago
I think discussions like this are generally worse off when we talk about all the outliers, even though it's really hard not too, because they're the first thing that spring to mind. IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, etc... are not like ordinary businesses.
- netcan 14y ago
  I guess that depends on context. Some of the arguments for/against "building on someone else's platform" have to do with the potential to become an outlier.

einhverfr 14y ago

Indeed. I am trying to think of any software company anywhere right now that doesn't build on someone else's platform. I can't think of any. Either they are setting sail on someone's hardware platform or OS (or even kernel and utilities, as Linux distros do), or both. I think the key issue as you say is to keep tabs of the risks and try to manage them. But I don't think it is really possible not to depend on someone else's platform to some extent, well unless you want to write your own cross-platform C compiler and then write your own kernel with it, and then write an operating system surrounding it, and then writing your app..... or give up on the cross-platform bit and just make your own chips too..... I guess that IBM software on AIX on Power might be close to building on your own platform. I don't know if they wrote their own compilers though. But in recent decades even IBM has made noises about abandoning AIX in favor of Linux if they can meet the needs of existing AIX customers.... So maybe it doesn't even work for IBM....

jonknee 14y ago
Apple is pretty close. They have their own hardware, OS, kernel and even retail stores. They piggyback on a lot of OSS, but when your developers are all using your hardware with your IDE to make software for your closed platform, it's pretty vertically integrated.
netcan 14y ago
I think you need to think of these things in relative terms. It's probably more correct to phrase this "don't take big platform risks." IE, If you build on windows or linux you take the risk of either failing. But you do at least know that they're goal is to be a platform for developers to build on. The risk of sudden changes in the T&Cs turning your business on its head are small, compared to the risk on Facebook, iOS or Twitter for example. Of course everything is built on other things. Even if the software and even hardware is independent, you're stil dependent on the economy. You need copper for your circuits and oil for your plastics and anyone know how to make tools for making tools for making drilling tools? How am I supposed to get fuel without tools for making drilling equipment? Hold on, I'll figure this out I made a flint axe...