Product and platform/technology

Products are built using technology or platforms. They are more than just technology.

A product focus is on solving particular problem

It needs user trainings, supply-chains.

Certain performance goal, assurances, support ecosystem etc.

A technology on the other hand can offer a broader set to solve many problems, may not offer everything a product pipeline requires but can act as a cog in the wheel.

A technology is an enabler from a product perspective.

Once we have that clarified, we can have a clear demarcation between products and technology and their forcing functions.

With product, it is important to identify user needs and simplify the good way to use it. Therefore, a technology may be portable across multiple platforms e.g. Linux, Windows, Mac etc. does not mean, product should use all its capabilities. It may confuse the users or reduce the quality of product experience, say if the product was cloud hosted. Therefore, products carve out a slice of technology to build itself.

Next time we will talk about Open-Source in perspective of Products and technology, stay tuned !