We can use the unfair advantages in a different way for early adopters. Below the level of the Enterprise software market there is a large sub-economy consisting of vertical-industry application software for freestanding businesses; think funeral parlors and tennis clubs, for example.

     I regard vertical-industry software as industry knowledge locked inside a black box, a computer application. Unlocking this knowledge by giving it a visual API in a Business Object can make it reusable to potential developers of other applicaitions, in particular system integrators. Some developers familiar with particular vertical-market applications might see doing this to be more profitable than selling the black-box applications; the platform’s pricing scheme must make this obvious.

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