When selecting the platform that you’re going to use for your business, it can seem like an overwhelming decision process to weigh all of your options and pick the right one for you. However, if you know what to look for, you can make the choice much easier and have a much more fruitful experience in the future.
One important factor in this process to consider is extensibility—and fortunately, it’s actually pretty simple to define and understand how it benefits your business. Let’s break it down.
Extensible Platforms for Businesses
If you have an online presence, it’s likely that you’ve made use of some type of software or platform to help your brand grow and develop. A lot has been said about what makes a quality product, but one thing is certain: it needs to be built to support expansion. It also needs to be adaptable.
If you are seeking an extensible software solution for your company, look no further than platforms like WordPress and Drupal that allow users access to both premium and free plugins with which they can customize their experience on their website or app. The best part? These platforms have already proven themselves to be incredibly flexible in terms of how businesses can make use of them.
In fact, many large companies such as Facebook and Google rely on these open-source solutions to run their sites. So, if you’re looking for a way to streamline operations and improve customer service without breaking the bank, consider using extensible software solutions like WordPress and Drupal. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised at just how easy it is to tailor your site according to specific needs!
Why Extensible Platforms Are Important
The terms platform and API are frequently used interchangeably. While they do overlap, there is an important distinction between them. An API enables customers and developers to access data from your application programmatically. A platform allows you to extend your app or service in new ways via third-party apps and services.
For example, Amazon Alexa users can customize their voice commands with any skill published on Amazon’s Skill Store. Users could choose skills such as: Uber, Domino’s Pizza, The Weather Channel and ESPN Sports Centre (to name just a few). These skills enable users to do things like ordering pizza, requesting a car ride, or checking sports scores – all with nothing but their voice!
Core Benefits of An Extensible Platform
An extensible platform (whether software or hardware) is one that provides additional functionalities to its base capabilities. In other words, it allows customization and expansion in terms of modifying its core components without having to replace them entirely. The ability to expand and extend hardware platforms while maintaining their basic functionality is what makes them so popular.
A good example is Apple’s iOS-based devices: they all run on an operating system that’s not customizable or modifiable by end users, but they are still easily able to run apps built by third parties as long as these developers follow specific guidelines set forth by Apple.
Managing A Partnership with An Extensible Platform
As we’ve discussed before, software as a service (SaaS) is becoming increasingly popular in today’s tech space. By leveraging SaaS, businesses are able to focus on their core competencies and not waste resources on maintaining hardware and software.
In fact, according to Oracle—the company that developed Java—the number of SaaS deployments grew by 20 percent from 2011 to 2012, marking one of the fastest-growing segments in enterprise computing. But what if your business needs flexibility and customization? With an extensible platform like Appellatory Titanium Cloud you can gain both stability and scalability in your mobile application efforts.
Maintaining An Extensible Platform
Most businesses struggle with one key problem: keeping up. Platforms, on the other hand, are designed to do just that. And when it comes to platforms, there is no easier way than maintaining an extensible one—one that has plug-and-play capabilities for developers who will want to build out your business’s functionality with their own apps and integrations.
Because when it comes to features—apps are your best bet at staying competitive and keeping customers engaged. For more on how you can extend your platform’s capabilities for greater customer value and retention, visit our knowledge Centre today!
Extensibility And the Future
The Extensibility of a Platform Benefits Businesses in Many Ways. It Helps in Differentiating Themselves from Their Competitors, Improving Their Product, And Adding to Their Overall Customer Experience. I Feel That as More Companies Start to Use APIs Within Their Products, That the Extensibility of a Platform Will Become Even More Important. So, When You’re Designing Your Next Mobile App or Web Application, Think About How It Can Be Extended for Future Uses. (Note: don’t need to write any specific examples here)
Don’t forget that there are many different types of extensibilities, so be sure you understand which type(s) fit your product and how you want it to interact with its users or other platforms. Depending on what your product is and what audience you cater to will depend on whether or not an API fits into your plans.
If you do decide that an API is for you, I recommend exploring early on how exactly people are going to use it and integrate into their workflow and if they will be able to create a new app entirely based off your technology. These details can make or break whether or not someone wants to adopt your technology in the future.
Conclusion
When choosing a platform for an enterprise application, it’s important to consider not just price and performance but also how easy it will be to add new features. If you find that you need more power than your chosen solution provides out of the box, do you know what’s involved in adding custom functionality?
The more code you have to write yourself, or a third party has to write on your behalf, to customize any given piece of software, then taking into account all the related costs such as development time and maintenance over time – that’s when it becomes clear: extensible platforms pay off in spades. It may cost more initially, but they’ll save you money in the long run.
So ask yourself: is my platform going to be able to handle my needs today AND tomorrow? Is it built with enough flexibility, so I won’t have to rip and replace if I want to get more done with less effort down the road? These questions are particularly crucial if your business plans include building up your own internal capabilities over time.
Having access to APIs allows developers within an organization – often those who don’t work directly on any one project – flexibility and freedom which would otherwise require major overhauls should additional resources become necessary down the line.
