No; but the most efficient model of a company in an "APIs for everything" world is one that can build their own systems out of bulk APIs provided by various service providers. It gives companies a huge amount of leverage over their suppliers -- open standards and the ability to swap out one supplier for another via an API erodes platform lock-in. The winning players will eat their competition that doesn't have this type of infrastructure.
That's what Andreessen meant when he famously said "Software is eating the world." Given a fast enough computer and enough abstraction, there is literally no task that cannot be automated in software.
Amazon is the poster child for a company built around a set of APIs. So yeah, you may buy warehouse robots from Kiva Systems, but you're not going to have a competitive advantage unless you're vertically integrating / automating all of your business processes like Amazon does. The product offerings that Amazon can deliver (merchant services, AWS, etc.) as a result give them a HUGE advantage over traditional retailers like Wal-Mart: this is an advantage that is structural and not something a large, established entity like Wal-Mart can copy with the same level of success.
Retail was a big one with huge rewards; but the same thing is happening in every industry. The companies that build the APIs that make it easier for their competitors to compete with them are the ones winning because their competition is funding their scale. Open companies are definitely the future (and note that "open" does not mean "free" -- pricing is absolutely key in this type of business model).
That's what Andreessen meant when he famously said "Software is eating the world." Given a fast enough computer and enough abstraction, there is literally no task that cannot be automated in software.
Amazon is the poster child for a company built around a set of APIs. So yeah, you may buy warehouse robots from Kiva Systems, but you're not going to have a competitive advantage unless you're vertically integrating / automating all of your business processes like Amazon does. The product offerings that Amazon can deliver (merchant services, AWS, etc.) as a result give them a HUGE advantage over traditional retailers like Wal-Mart: this is an advantage that is structural and not something a large, established entity like Wal-Mart can copy with the same level of success.
Retail was a big one with huge rewards; but the same thing is happening in every industry. The companies that build the APIs that make it easier for their competitors to compete with them are the ones winning because their competition is funding their scale. Open companies are definitely the future (and note that "open" does not mean "free" -- pricing is absolutely key in this type of business model).