In The Age of the Platform, I write about how your platform isn’t entirely within your control. Case in point: the NHL and NBA announced that they’ll no longer be creating apps for the BlackBerry. Now, that might not matter to people still addicted to crackberries and their QWERTY keyboards. But what kind of signal does that send to your ecosystem?

In a way this is an opportunity for a developer or potential partner: Why not create new apps to fill this void?

But how many developers worth their salt are going to spend the time, money, and effort developing apps for a platform clearly in decline? The same thing applies to HP with WebOS. Yes, anyone can develop apps for these devices, but given the current state of affairs, will they?