Jason Perlow, ZDNet editor, wrote a good article describing the cloud wars and interoperability problem between services, calling it “Game of Services: Revenge of the cloud dragons“.

I do agree with him, this game isn’t anymore about mobile, cloud/services, but rather the API, the interoperability (or not) between services or apps. It’s about how apps communicated between them, how can customers be connected seamlessly and how data flows along those APIS.

Jason describes pretty much an harmonic effect; first they open their services, let you settle, know the place and you feel comfortable, then they just slowly close the door, keeping you inside and you then need to ask to leave, if they allow it.

So this game is not about services, but rather walled gardens (remember Microsoft?), keeping you (the customer) inside, closing doors to the outside and owning your data. On this game everyone wants to be the Casterly Rock, and you’re not going to win.