In August, Cocoa Radio interviewed Brent Simmons about NetNewsWire, an RSS reader. NetNewsWire is built upon Apple's Cocoa framework and an application framework that Brent developed. Together, these frameworks act as a product platform.
Note: Language frameworks include .NET, Java, and Cocoa. The application framework consists of software components specific to the product. A building block that calculates the present value of a cash flow stream, for example, may be in the application framework for a finance product.
Several weeks after the interview, NewsGator acquired NetNewsWire. Marketing Playbook identified the acquisition as part of a Platform Play.
In the software industry, a relationship exists between product platforms and platform plays. If you develop an easy-to-use product platform, it will be easier for you -- and your customers -- to move to the platform play. Typically, you will start out in another marketing play, gain dominance, and find yourself in a position to run the platform play.
What's more, a product platform is a launch pad for the rocket of proof. John Zagula and Richard Tong teach us that proof is more powerful than benefits or features. If that's true, shouldn't we be dreaming of ways to showcase proof?
Consider this scenario:
You start a software consulting business. You are one of hundreds promising to deliver software. But what if you create a product platform and produce customized demos for each client?
Because product platforms feed into the proof equation, you can now speed past the competition. You'd think that most software consulting firms would take this approach, but they don't. And many that do, create a mess of the product platform.
The Marketing Playbook points out that when you move to the platform play, the platform has to be easy for customers to use. NTT DoCoMo is one example:
"They started by using a simple subset of common HTML so that it would be exceptionally simple for anyone to create a site or service."
And when customers find they benefit by joining your platform, they will defend you from competition. So even though you may be unable to run a platform play from the start, start thinking about how to run a platform play in the future.