Software/Server

Server and software platform vendor ecosystems are heavily reliant on developers to innovate on their newest technologies, thereby, accelerating platform adoption, and growing market share.  The ultimate goal is to collaborate with the developers and ISVs to reach the end customer to win their acceptance, trust and loyalty. The health and dynamism of the platform ecosystem is thus a strategic imperative.

Conventionally, platform vendors service developers by simply providing to all of their technical information and guidance instructions via various web sites, online resources and such – a process typically driven by various compliance programs. This traditional way of giving all content to everyone results the multitude of developers not getting the right guidance to succeed in technology adoption. Not surprisingly, developers stay away from the compliance programs or drop out mid-way through the process rendering the whole exercise ineffective leaving a gap between innovation and the customers. With no clear visibility into the current developer profile and future technology adoption trends, the platform provider is not able to accurately and expeditiously measure the strengths and weaknesses of their ecosystem to make appropriate adjustments. This inhibits strategic planning and successful execution. To make matters worse, developers have choices in technology platforms with the continuing trend toward more agility, and have a propensity to gravitate towards platforms that pose the least resistance for adoption.


Consider the following trends being observed from a cross section of prominent platform ecosystems:

  • Developers tend to avoid or drop out of platform compliance programs that require too much work, are too costly, and provide little to no upfront value;
  • Developers find it very difficult, in general, translating platform guidance which compromises technology adoption, product quality and time-to-market;
  • Most compliance programs include numerous process hurdles that inhibit developers from achieving full value and benefits; thus drop off occurs, innovation wanes, and customer satisfaction suffers, as does market share.

The implications are clear -- if developers are not choosing to innovate on your platform because the path to compliance is fraught with chaos and confusion, overall technology adoption will suffer, thereby compromising customer satisfaction, brand loyalty and market share. 

This is a function of the lack of technologies available to fingerprint the applications and provide guidance as well not having insight into what challenges the developers cannot overcome and thus drop off, or at best, maintain a very small, inconsequential footprint in your ecosystem.

SpikeSource’s Platform Ecosystem Management solution transforms collaboration between platform providers and their developers with a powerful, compelling set of functionality to address their needs:

  • Application fingerprinting to provide deep insight into the component content and versions
  • Analysis and reporting on technology exploitation opportunities, and vulnerabilities needing remediation
  • 24X7 monitoring of application specific components for reported vulnerabilities and providing timely alerts
  • Compliance framework that is at once comprehensive and tailored to meet specific developer needs
  • Business intelligence to provide visibility into the current state and trending of ecosystems and the effectiveness of remediation and recommendations

Through the offer of the above solution, Spikesource provides the following values to enable success of the platform vendor ecosystem:

  • Transform Developer Enablement 
  • Accelerate Technology Adoption
  • Drive Measurable Developer Innovation
  • Establish Sustainable Value
  • Develop 360 High Visibility into Developer Ecosystem

The end result is a win-win-win for the platform vendor, the developers and the common end customers.