Open Tech Ecosystems: Future State or Fruitless Discussion?
Randall "Texrat" Arnold discusses open tech ecosystems and whether they represent the future or are just fruitless discussions. He outlines some potential hazards of open ecosystems, including lowest common denominator development, choice overload when many options are available, and the risk that a major player could drop support causing others to follow. However, he concludes by defining a digital ecosystem as a self-organizing digital infrastructure that supports cooperation, knowledge sharing, and open/adaptive technologies and business models.
5. Community Level Hacking Encouraged by Rovio* Open Examples: *http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=474342&postcount=11
6. Hazards of an Open Tech Ecosystem “Lowest Common Denominator” development Basic HTML 5 used for “everything and the kitchen sink” “Netflix Effect” Hot demand for services like streaming video drives up consumer cost and fragmentation (mini monopolies) Choice Overload When faced with high number of choices, people tend to go with the crowd Major player gets cold feet and drops support …and others fall like dominoes
7. In General: “…ecosystem wars are fought on three fronts: mindshare, market share and patents.” -Andreas Constantinou http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2011/09/a-game-of-ecosystems-crashing-the-android-party/
8. Conclusions? “A digital ecosystem is a self-organising digital infrastructure aimed at creating a digital environment for networked [entities*] that supports the cooperation, the knowledge sharing, the development of open and adaptive technologies and evolutionary business models.” http://www.digital-ecosystems.org/ (*my edit, was ‘organisations’)
Open Tech Ecosystems: Future State or Fruitless Discussion?
What is a tech (or digital) ecosystem? Is it just your collection of devices that you want to connect? Does it have to be homogenous? What makes it an “ecosystem”?
How many people rely on a completely homogenous ecosystem? What limitations/frustrationsare encountered, if any?
Meta-systems are “systems of systems”. Connecting not just contact (identity) and scheduling data, but much more and across domains. Even businesses are recognizing this and opening up to broad acceptance of employee devices. Every solution should be people-centric, focusing on Contacts + Communication
Open software-based ecosystems: Mozilla Add-ons and Open Badges, Rovio’s Angry Birds phenomenon. Are they bucking a trend, or setting one?
An Open Tech Ecosystem is vulnerable to many hazards: “Lowest Common Denominator” development (i.e., abuse of HTML 5), the “Netflix Effect”,Choice Overload, and the possibility of a Major player getting cold feet and dropping support (which can have a cascading effect).
“…ecosystem wars are fought on three fronts: mindshare, market share and patents.” -Andreas Constantinou, VisionMobile