Joel on Platform Vendors
June 11, 2009 - 10:04am — bexA while back I blogged about the lack of Oracle UCM "vertical applications". A vertical application is an add-on to an existing product or platform, but one that is industry specific. A lot of Oracle UCM consultants have created very general add-ons, and have sold them along with their services.
On occasion, Oracle implements one of these general features, and the add-on product becomes obsolete. Unsellable... and this can cause some grumpiness... but it doesn't have to be this way.
Joel on Software has recently had a similar rant about people who make add-ons to platforms... but in this case, he's referring to the iPhone. Similar to Oracle UCM, the iPhone is a platform... so you'll get some folks who just "fill the gaps," and others who create entirely new markets. A lot of gap-fillers had their profits crushed when the new iPhone OS rendered their add-ons obsolete. Some quotes:
A good platform always has opportunities for applications that aren’t just gap-fillers. These are the kind of application that the vendor is unlikely ever to consider a core feature, usually because it’s vertical — it’s not something everyone is going to want. There is exactly zero chance that Apple is ever going to add a feature to the iPhone for dentists. Zero.
Or, more succinctly, as Dave Winer once said:
Sometimes developers choose a niche that’s either directly in the path of the vendor, or even worse, on the roadmap of the vendor. In those cases, they don’t really deserve our sympathy.
Yes... If you make a general add-on to Oracle UCM, you have a wider possible audience... but that doesn't mean you'll be able to sell to it all! You'll have a tiny bit of market penetration, and then one day Oracle will just write a clone of what you did.
When it comes to add-ons to platforms, verticals are almost always more profitable. The market might be smaller, but it is much easier to highlight the need to your market, and the competition is less. If you make something good, odds are you'll be able to sell it for a looooong time.
Great Point!
Now and again it will be so tempting to fill a short-term need, either because it fits your expertise well, or you have the excess manpower, etc., but you certainly have to be objective enough to know when its become a dead end and move on. There ARE those times that the incentive to fill a short term gap IS enough to make business sense to expend resources against that IF you can stay emotionally detached enough to know when to cut out and move on.
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