Open for business

It’s amazing what a bit of consumer outcry and healthy competition will do.

First Apple decides to reverse its previous decision on letting third party developers create applications for its new iPhone. At launch, Steve Jobs said it was a closed shop, but more recently, after a bit of consumer criticism on his stance, he have them the green light to develop at will.

And earlier this week a consortium led by Google announced plans to launch the OpenSocial social networking platform, enabling professional and amateur developers to create applications that can be used on all of the participating platforms. As of today these include Google’s Orkut (it’s big in Brazil, apparently), LinkedIn, Salesforce.com, Ning, Hi5, Friendster (I thought they were friendless and had now folded, but I guess I was wrong), Viadeo, Oracle and - announced today - the big kahuna of them all, MySpace. This is of course in response to the success that Facebook has had since it opened up its own platform earlier this year to third party developers, helping build its numbers of subscribers to 50 million.

But the biggest shake-up of them all is going to be in mobile. In a couple of week’s time Google will reveal its plans to launch software that will be “open,” so allowing developers to create services that take advantage of Google’s applications - using GPS to find a store on a GoogleMap, for instance. Google has been talking to phone manufacturers as well as to the service providers here and in Europe, although the (dis)likes of Verizon and ATT&T clearly hate the thought that they won’t be able to control what their customers can access through their networks (so if we’re a Verizon subscriber and want music on our handsets we have to take their V-CAST service).

If this duopoly doesn’t want to play ball, Google has an ace up its sleeve - it will almost certainly try and set up its own network and will bid in next January’s Government auction of the wireless spectrum. The winning bid is likely to be around $15billion, and with over $200billion in the bank it’s a price big G can well afford.

So, Apple, Verizon, ATT&T and all other corporations desperate to wall in your customers, read the signs. And learn the lessons of AOL when it too tried to tie subscribers into its own set of ‘approved services’ - subscribers who then left in their millions once they realized there was a better life outside the corporate confines.

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