I’d have to say not quite. It depends on how you define “platform”, it’s also interesting to look at the software industry right now in light of the momentum that Open Source Software has. Back in the 80’s and mid-90&#82…

We’ve heard so much (and too much) regarding the long-tail of content. . . books, blogs, podcasts, videos. .. but is there such as thing as a software long-tail? I would say so, but the harder question to answer is that “is there money to be made…

Earlier this week, Scoble called out to VCs to ask whether or not they support .NET in response to an eWeek article titled Is .Net Failing to Draw Venture Capital Loyalty?   The responses I have seen from Rick Segal, Tim Oren, Ed Si…

The problem with this approach as it has played out was two-fold. One, Microsoft’s “safe” investing grounds were largely niche markets which are exactly the types of segments unsuitable for venture. Two, given the company’s historical zero-sum approach to business, when they did decide to buy their way into a market, it generally didn’t translate into great financial outcome for investors in the acquired company. Contrast this with Cisco, where the venture community and Cisco’s corporate development folks were practically kissing cousins.

Moral of the story: what you sow is what you reap.

Relative to VCs, they are the ultimate thin slicers so to the extent the meme, “Microsoft embraces, extends, extinguishes” sticks, they’re stuck. Same story in open source where VCs can free associate on a built-in community model and open APIs translating to lower initial selling costs, more viral cross customer leverage, friction free upselling opportunities and a generally more fluid and agile ecosystem. And, oh yeah, no 500 pound gorilla. Not a panacea to be sure, but gravity certainly feels a lot more favorable in the open source arena from an investing perspective.

I can’t imagine that a VC firm will look at the technology used for the implementation of an incredible business idea and decline to invest. If this is the case, Benchmark would have taken one look at Pierre Omidiar’s nasty Perl scripts and said “No thanks!” to eBay. You bring in some technology studs to make it ready for primetime.

The bigger platform question is the one of traditional server-side web user interfaces of to go with client-side RIAs that connect to web services. For example, a spreadsheet application that connects to eBay web services. Another example would be a Flash Application that connects through web services to provide automaticly updating sports scores, video, etc. matching the user’s tastes. Think PointCast, with a standard means of providing such an intriguing user interface. We all know that PointCast had no business model and went down in flames … if they had the knowledge we have today about the search engine business model of Google or Yahoo!, they would be an incredible force to this day. Back to my point, VCs should be looking at solid contenders who use this new hybrid client-side web-services platform. They are sure to be the next round of winners. Can we take clues from the market? Heck yes… why do you think that Adobe bought Macromedia! Macromedia’s Flash platform is light-years beyond anything else. Of course, the down-side to this is that there is currently not enough talent with this kind of experience. Its also a completely different mindset for the development community that is going to take a while to gain traction.