An Open Platform – Aren’t We Lucky!

In our last marketing blog we were in a somewhat nostalgic mood referring back to the old Commodore 64 days. Today’s topic is platform. More specifically open platform. What difference can it make, compared the opposite – a closed platform?

Again I am going to head back into history.  You may call this a morbid blog, as this story also involves the perishing of the Swedish automobile company SAAB.

SAAB was well recognized as an innovative and leading-edge technology adopter, that introduced many of today’s standard automotive features, starting with the seat belt (http://www.saabsunited.com/2005/12/saab-innovations.html).

By 1990 in the midst of a changing industry, SAAB became a part of General Motors where the new parent company chose to design cars based on a GM platform.  Three years later when cars came off the line, loyal SAAB customers were disappointed and no longer considered SAAB in the class of BMW or Mercedes Benz.

The story ends with SAAB, limited by its GM platform, was no longer able to capitalize from the strength of individuality and innovativeness that made them who they are. It is a painful lesson of business cruelty that a company with such engineering skills and enthusiasm was tied to a closed platform.

Unlike in car business, aren’t we lucky we have open platforms in computing industry?!  What a great benefit it is for start-up companies, new R&D projects, public sector, government organizations etc. to have a freedom of choice without paying any licensing fees and royalties. What a brilliant opportunity for any individual architect, designer, developer alone or within a company to exploit their creativeness and skills.

The FXI Cstick Cotton Candy is totally open platform!

Feel free to develop and ship content for it. Deploy your own services to enterprises and individuals. But if you like you can leave it open and that is only a start. The development doesn’t have to stop when the end user gets Cotton Candy – they can create their own solutions as well. At the end of the day the limitation is not tools, not operating systems, not screen size, not money – It is your own imagination.

Put the platform in your pocket!