Platform is the Dictionary; Application the Story

It started off with an innocuous coffee table question – What is more important in IoT business - the platform or the application ?

After a hard day, I was too tired to think of a complex answer. The simplest analogy that came to my mind was that of Dictionary and Story.

A Dictionary has all the words a language can possibly have. But, it takes the creativity of a writer to carefully choose the right words, stitch them together and build a story. Just as a Platform that gives developers the tool to create the end user application/service .

The reader remembers only the story and the author gets all the credit, and the Dictionary stays unappreciated (mostly). The (non-geeky )user too just enjoys the app, seldom caring about the platform.

The reader pays only for the story. The story creates the emotional experience that the reader desires (hopefully).

No wonder, it is the service/application provider that makes most money in the IoT world and it is getting tougher for the platform providers to differentiate, the same problem dictionaries have despite their undeniable value to the authors.