LinkLog: Successful Platforms

Here is a nice discussion worth reading about Silicon Valley, recession, disruptive products and successful platforms:

He says that a platform ill be successful if it has three characteristics. It has to be able to commoditize a market. Secondly, it has to obey the 10x better/cheaper rule.

Thirdly, a platform must allow you to add value with custom additions. The reason Netscape wasn’t a platform was that no one could program to it, nobody could add value. (By the way, that’s also true for virtualization…) Unless you have all three characteristics, you won’t have a disruptive chain that can accelerate a startup from zero to sixty, and turn it into a major player.

Makes a lot of sense. Either all these or an outstanding product/business model as in the case of Google Search. The discussion is also optimistic about the prospects of Silicon Valley, some musings about what it takes to increase adoption of Green Technology. Looking forward to reading the second part.