“The one simplicity for which I’d give a straw is that which is on the opposite aspect of the advanced.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.*
At Forrester, we’ve periodically debated the that means of the phrase “platform,” and it’s been difficult. Frequent floor has eluded those that cowl ecosystems comparable to Amazon and Salesforce versus these overlaying platform engineering.
Just lately, we’ve been discussing this widespread definition of platform: “a product that helps the creation and/or supply of different merchandise.” The next diagram illustrates this idea:
The acid check for a unified definition of “platform”: What can we are saying that might be true each of the Amazon retail ecosystem in addition to Amazon Net Companies?
Nicely, what do a brand new Amazon storefront and a brand new AWS account have in widespread? Each of them are going to require much more funding by their homeowners to ship any worth. An empty Amazon storefront? It’s good to determine your product combine, provide chain, pricing, advertising and marketing, and so on. Amazon provides you lots of assist, however you may have a lot work forward of you in configuring the platform for worth. An AWS account? Empty EC2 digital machines or Lambda capabilities? Not doing anybody a lot good till you put in and run software program and encompass these workloads with lots of further capabilities.
So we are able to say that platforms, on the whole, require additional funding, and the results of such funding is often value-generating functionality. It’s additionally properly established that platforms are merchandise (see Workforce Topologies and different sources). Due to this fact, in a world pivoting to the product mannequin, it appears cheap to easily say that the platform is a product that’s creating, or supporting the supply of, different merchandise.
We additionally see platforms as both “infrastructure” or “enterprise.” Generally a given vendor supplies each — Salesforce with Power.com as an infrastructure platform (a platform as a service, within the traditional definition), Agentforce for CRM, and so on. Be aware that each require critical funding to get going (and this isn’t a criticism of Salesforce; it’s only a normal remark that you simply’re not going to have a functioning CRM functionality with out investing substantial setup effort).
The boundary right here is straightforward: Infrastructure is business-agnostic (on the whole, it might work in varied business verticals) whereas a enterprise platform embeds business-meaningful semantics within the type of APIs, information, or companies. Buyer relationship administration, provide chain, pricing, fee gross sales funnels — these are all business-specific ideas, and if that’s what’s on supply, you may have a enterprise platform. (Some nuance within the above diagram: Enterprise platforms could help constructed apps or be immediately configured for shopper entry, however in both case, it’s effort, and for me, it’s “software” by definition if the top shopper is interacting immediately.)
Lastly, I can already really feel the eyebrows elevating on the inclusion of “software.” I’ll be speaking extra about this as we replace Forrester’s 4-Lifecycle Mannequin, however for now, I’ll simply say:
If platforms are “merchandise,” then we’d like a particular label for merchandise that aren’t platforms (information geeks will acknowledge the subtyping downside). And with due respect to Workforce Topologies, I’ve not seen the time period “stream-aligned” get traction in portfolio administration.
Conversely, the time period “software” is right here to remain and has a fairly constant business that means, a minimum of within the discussions I’ve with IT leaders — extra on this later.
Lastly, this mannequin is a part of the Forrester Platform Engineering Functionality Mannequin, simply launched final week. I’ll be doing one other weblog on the core of that work. Additionally, make sure to try Embrace Platform Org Buildings To Break Down Silos And Ship Scale, additionally simply out this month, which I coauthored with Manuel Geitz!
*Wikiquote notes: “Usually quoted as ‘I wouldn’t give a fig for the simplicity on this aspect of complexity; I’d give my proper arm for the simplicity on the far aspect of complexity’ and attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.”
