Open Plain

The opposite of the 'closed' Walled Garden approaches.

Citation

"The tug-of-war between the walled-garden and open-plain strategies is a fundamental tension in many markets. For instance… Credit Cards

First, there was BankAmericard when it was exclusive to Bank of America. Then along comes Master Charge (later known as Mastercard) developed by smaller banks to compete with BOA and everyone could compete.

Personal Computers

Apple rolled out the Macintosh and Microsoft countered with Windows and ran away with the desktop computing market.

Hosanagar Wharton a professor of operations and information management believes that the open-plain approach makes the most sense in the long run. By restricting the ability to develop applications, you ultimately limit the utility of your own product or service for consumers and thus its value.

Google has taken an open approach with its Google Maps service. It provides a mechanism by which other outfits can integrate or “mash up” its maps into their web pages. That has encouraged other companies to use the service.

YouTube, which Google bought last year is another. With YouTube, anybody can upload any content and offer it. The customers are the broadcasters of openly available content." (http://freethinkr.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/the-walled-garden-strategy-loses-another-one-ftcom/#respond)