Building Your Infrastructure on Someone Else’s Turf
It’s been a debate in the past about whether or not you should build your infrastructure on someone else’s turf. I’d say the “Berlin Wall” is falling in this debate as API’s are one of the causes of this paradigm shift. Today, Summize was rumored to have been acquired by Twitter.
This blog post isn’t to debate whether Twitter should have fixed it’s infrastructure before adding an asset, but it’s to look at the strategy to rely on someone else.
Twitter has been extremely tough to rely on as of late. The service has been plagued by service outages. This directly (not indirect) affects Summize. Summize needs Twitter. Does Twitter need Summize? It’d say no, but it’s a nice to have.
Can you build your infrastructure on someone else’s platform? Look at Amazon Web Services. How many startups are built on their platform? Plenty.
I’m still on the fence (standing on the ‘wall’ so to speak) because of the direct relationship and reliance one may have on another partner. Another partner directly controls your fate. That’s tough to stomach.
What are your thoughts?