Jeffrey McManus

My old boss Toni, who now runs the Wordpress business, posted today about Corel’s new “Wordperfect Lightning” product, which supports publishing to blogs using blogs’ XML APIs. The interesting point isn’t the fact that a zombie Wordperfect still roams the earth, but that Corel didn’t have to ask anybody permission to do the integration. It’s one of many examples of how open platforms reduce friction.

I was talking to somebody at a company yesterday who drove me completely insane because they wanted me to sign and fax them a nondisclosure agreement before they’d even let me look at their API documentation? Hint: your API is not confidential or proprietary, and creating an API then building a barbed-wire moat around it sort of misses the point.