Who Do You Rely On?

Web 2.0 brought about mashups and started the push to mainstream service oriented architectures (SOA). As a result the technology that drives companies has begun to hollow out. What would happen if one of these technologies, say for instance google, went away? What technologies does your organization rely on, and how long do you think they’re going to be around?

Through Google Voice , Google supplies users with a  phone number.  This phone number gives the user access to numerous telephone related features.  Up until now, and for the foreseeable future, users manage their Google Voice account via a web browers on Google’s website.  What they would like to do, however, is allow access to Google Voice via the iPhone.  If the iPhone application was allowed the user would gain access to several features which currently exist on the iPhone (voice dialing, voice mail, and SMS) and a few (voicemail transcripts, conference calling, free calls) that don’t.  This puts Apple in a funny spot.  On one hand they rely on the services and infrastructure of AT&T, which Google Voice will compete with.  On the other hand the iPhone relies heavily on several of google’s services including maps, traffic, youtube, mail, calendar, and a few more.  To make matters worse google is pushing their own open source operating system which will be in direct competition with iPhone. So now Apple denied Google.  What if Google were to pull it’s apps off the iPhone in favor of it’s own OS?

Recently Apple denied Google’s request for their iPhone application interface to Google Voice to be sold on iTunes.  They claim it’s not allowed under the terms of the end user license agreement for iPhone developers.  Google claims they’re just favoring AT&T.  AT&T fired back at Google by filing suit with the FCC claiming Google is violating terms of thew new Net Neutrality rules.  This is putting Apple in a tight spot.

This is where business becomes stressful and it’s helpful to understand who you rely on and how well they play together.