Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

AMD's move to open source their frameworks was a brilliant move and I think they'll see the seeds grow in the next 2-3 years as developers help mature their product.  I'm certain major companies like Google would be incredibly interested in participating in such a product as they're constantly looking for ways to improve the performance of their applications.  Likewise, many other companies will probably be doing the same and the feedback loop created between open source developers and AMD will simply help mature their products and improve sales in the long term.  Even their stock price has risen by $1/share since the announcement, which means that people must feel confident in AMD's decision.

This whole situation got me thinking the other day about other major companies and how they could open more of their systems to developers to improve what they can do in creative fashion.  In relationship to Google, as I mentioned with YouTube, they ought to continue opening up their applications to allow more developers to contribute to them.  Although they are the giant in search, video, advertising and whatnot, they still suffer in terms of quality at times.

For instance, I find their search to be limited, constantly filled with junk results that waste my time.  And certainly others must feel the same way.  That isn't to say what they have is poor.  However, the reality is that their search product needs a massive facelift and internally I'm not certain that the developers are able to push out their products fast enough.  Similarly, I find Ads to produce a plethora of irrelevant junk ads when I had hosted them on my site.  And I already mentioned what we could do with YouTube's player.

As a result, I've concluded that a potential business development move that Google ought to make is to open more of their APIs, most notably search, Google Apps, YouTube, and Ads.  I noticed that Google had cut off their older web service where people could extract results via XML.  This service was rebuilt as an AJAX type of search, which in my opinion, is practically useless for people who want to do more with their results.  You have to use their branded search and the API is rather bulky and limited.  Of course, the purpose is to maintain their hegemony over the search market.  But I think this is a dangerous mode of thinking for them.

Instead, opening up more of their APIs would allow smaller businesses created by highly motivated and talented developers to improve upon Google's products where their current staff isn't.  In turn, Google could also act as a venture capital company that could provide seed money for these small businesses and perhaps a controlling stake in them.  In some ways, it's almost like hiring developers but in truth my plan would allow Google to let smaller, more focused teams do what they need without the business criticality one might come to expect in working at Google.  I mean, if I wanted to work on a better search interface at Google, I probably wouldn't be able to, except during my 20% situation.   That limits my productivity to 1 day a week as opposed to 5 up to possibly 7 days of pure coding.

Another clear benefit would be that Google wouldn't be forced to go through a dedicated hiring process.  They might require a business review process if they go with the seed money/controlling interest thing.  But in the end, the goal would be an acquisition if the application becomes successful.  This, imo, works for both parties as Google would supply the base technology while the venture would handle everything else.