GOOG 日前對全體員工發了一封信，標題是 ”Meaning of Open”，接著也把整篇文章發表在官方部落格公開分享。(這是我覺得新聞稿和部落格 mix 的好處之一。) 另外同事也拿出 Eric Schonfeld 2007 年底曾寫過的一篇“Who is the Openest of Them all”，作為不同立場的辯論。以下各節錄一段：
. . . open systems win. This is counter-intuitive to the traditionally trained MBA who is taught to generate a sustainable competitive advantage by creating a closed system, making it popular, then milking it through the product life cycle. The conventional wisdom goes that companies should lock in customers to lock out competitors. . . . a well-managed closed system can deliver plenty of profits. They can also deliver well-designed products in the short run — the iPod and iPhone being the obvious examples — but eventually innovation in a closed system tends towards being incremental at best (is a four blade razor really that much better than a three blade one?) because the whole point is to preserve the status quo. Complacency is the hallmark of any closed system. If you don’t have to work that hard to keep your customers, you won’t. (source: Meaning of Open)
But don’t be fooled. Companies are very selective about the areas where they choose to be open, and they very rarely open up their core source of profits voluntarily. . . . So the next time a company touts how open it is, ask yourself how that will help it make more money. Don’t confuse openness with altruism. (source: Who is the Openest of Them all)
Just because industry pressures and increased interconnectedness are forcing companies to embrace open technologies, don’t confuse openness with profitability. Open standards tend to be good for spurring the adoption of new technologies, but not so good for generating profits directly. That is why companies choose to be open along axes where they don’t compete. Google, for instance, is a big proponent of open standards in social networking, mobile networks, Web applications, and practically everywhere —except the one place it makes money. Its advertising system is a black box. You also never hear any talk coming out of Google about opening up the search algorithms that drive all of those advertising revenues. In contrast, Google has no problem championing open standards in industries that it is hoping to disrupt (by commoditizing existing business models with open standards, and making money with advertising instead). (source: Who is the Openest of Them all)
嗯，我重複唸了三次 “by commoditizing [competitors’] existing business models with open standards”。這真的挺嚇人的。如果你能穿著免費黑披風，拿著免費鐮刀，讓路過的花花草草都枯萎，然後再從這些殘骸中獲利。這已經不是王道了，這是天喻。
簡單來說，這年頭要談「開放」：
1. 非核心競爭力的產品統統提倡 Openness
2. 輸掉了也沒關係的市場統統提倡 Openness
3. 消費者比較能接觸到的表層統統提倡 Openness
然後是賺錢的嘴臉，要間接一點，才不會被人嫌。GOOG 值得長抱。
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