The Synthesist - software_platforms

The Synthesist - software_platforms:

A friend recently asked me to explain how Ray Ozzie's interesting observations about software integration, interoperability, and standards might be reconciled with my own beliefs about the inexorable commoditization of successful packaged software and the long, slow, decline of the packaged shrinkwrap software industry. Ray understands the far-reaching impact that technical decisions have on business outcomes as well as anyone that I've ever met, and re-reading his essay was serendipitous. Just last week, at the Open Source Business Conference, I had heard Clay Christensen devote a large part of a long lecture to his theory of 'the conservation of attractive profits' (a phenomenon that he also calls 'the conservation of modularity'). To me, this theory bears directly upon Ray's assertions about the business impact of software architecture, and more generally upon several 'truths' that I've observed during my career in the software industry, but have never been able to explain succinctly.