The Age of the Platform - Blog

Late last year I blogged about a series of articles that appeared in Fast Company magazine which pointed to the emerging power of Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon.  I was reminded this week of these platform companies with the recent industry talk about Verizon's interest in acquiring (or not acquiring, depending on whom you believe) NetFlix.

That's how I came across the book, The Age of the Platform, written by Phil Simon.  Simon writes:

"Over the last five to seven years, four companies have ascended to absolutely astounding heights. They are Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Yes, these companies excel via their superior use of technology. They have built incredible ecosystems. They've embraced partnerships and external innovation. Beyond all of this, The Gang of Four has embraced an entirely new way of doing business: the platform. A platform is simply a set of integrated planks. The most powerful platforms today have two things in common:

• They are rooted in equally powerful technologies - and their intelligent usage. In other words, they differ from traditional platforms in that they are not predicated on physical assets, land, and natural resources.
• They benefit tremendously from vibrant ecosystems (read: partners, developers, users, customers, and communities).

While platforms inhere a great deal of potential commercial appeal and applications, they do not exist simply as a means for companies to hawk their wares. At their core, platforms today are primarily about consumer utility and communications. Finally, because consumer tastes change much faster than business' tastes, platforms today must adapt very quickly or face obsolescence.

While Mr. Simon focuses on these four companies, his message is similar in nature and impact to the message in The Shift, written by Alcatel-Lucent's Allison Cerra and Christina James.  In the book the authors point to a new era in communications, one that requires operators to respond by transforming their networks into high-value development platforms for applications and services.

The lesson here is for the network operator/communications carrier community and their technology and services suppliers: Transition to a platform model, in some shape or form, or risk losing – soon.