Following in the footsteps of technology giants, companies are building software platforms to broaden their reach among consumers whose demand for digital services is growing. A cornerstone of the strategy includes giving third-party developers application programming interfaces, or APIs, with which to build applications for the platforms.
Platform strategies, as they are known in business technology parlance, are becoming table stakes for growth at a time when companies are relying on software to deliver digital products and services via the Web and mobile devices. Apple and Google, for example, have built platforms through which millions of developers sell their software to run on smartphones and tablets. Facebook allows programmers to write applications that work with its social network. For such tech firms, platforms are the chief product, enabling them to reach more users and, ideally, generate more revenues.