Why is the middle platform so popular?

As of now in 2019, if there are any hot topics in the IT industry, then the middle platform will definitely occupy a place. It’s like any company or news related to the middle platform will attract attention for a while. If something is not related to the concept of the middle platform, it seems to fall behind the times.

The middle platform has become one of the focuses of attention for a while.

But what exactly is Zhongtai? The answer is still unclear and vague, and many people are still pondering whether this concept has its own significance and whether it is another hyped concept, just a flash in the pan.

I sorted it out. In the past half year of 2019, not counting the ones I have read, I have collected no less than 300 articles related to the middle platform. Recently, for this course, I reviewed all the content again and found that each author has their own perspective and viewpoint on the middle platform in each article. Even now, the industry is still unable to completely unify and there are still different opinions. However, it is gratifying that there is more and more consensus in many aspects, and the concept of the middle platform is slowly fading away its mystery and coming to us.

And this is also the reason why I am interested in taking this course. In recent years, I have been working full-time on mid-platform related work. I have had the privilege of personally participating in the mid-platform construction projects of many large-scale group enterprises as an architect and product manager. Therefore, I hope to take this opportunity to organize and summarize what I have seen and learned, and try my best to restore a panoramic view of the mid-platform for you, helping you understand the essence of this concept and trend.

I have always followed a viewpoint that in order to understand a concept or technology, one must first go back to history, go back to the time of its birth, walk through its development process, and explore the background and reasons for its emergence.

As the saying goes, one must know the reason why things happen.

Today’s content serves as the beginning of the main course. I want to take you back to 10 years ago, to the starting point of the birth of the middle platform. Let’s walk through the birth and development of the middle platform together with the pace of time. Let’s see where the middle platform comes from and where it will go.

# 2008~ 2015 Keywords: Pregnancy

The rise of the middle platform is a trend. However, the concept of the middle platform was first noticed by everyone and must be considered as the middle platform strategy proposed by Alibaba. I don’t know if you have noticed this, but there is an interesting point, which is why I said that the middle platform was first noticed by everyone because of Alibaba, instead of directly saying that the concept of the middle platform was created by Alibaba?

Since our column is called “Explaining the Middle Office”, we can say a little more here. Many people believe that the term “middle office” was created by Alibaba. However, as of now, there are still some different opinions and views in the industry on this issue, because there have been front-end, middle-end, and back-end divisions in banks for a long time. Interestingly, when Alibaba introduced the Alibaba dual middle offices at the 2019 Alibaba Cloud Ali Cloud Aliyun Summit in Shanghai, the English translation also used the translation of “middle office” in banks. However, there is currently no official information from Alibaba to confirm whether this concept is related to the middle office concept in the banking industry.

But for you and me, whether the term Zhongtai was created by Alibaba or indeed refers to an existing concept in the banking industry, I think it is not that important. We can focus more on what this concept is and how it can help us in the context of IT.

As for Alibaba’s middle platform strategy, it is generally believed in the industry that it started with Jack Ma’s visit to Supercell in 2015. However, after following the information shared by Alibaba and actually understanding it with many colleagues from Alibaba, I learned that this visit can only be regarded as a prelude. Alibaba’s process of setting up functional teams had already begun before this. Therefore, to truly understand the background and reasons for the emergence of Alibaba’s middle platform, we need to go back even earlier, at least to 2008.

Because in 2008, with the adjustment of Alibaba’s strategy, Tmall emerged. However, due to its own characteristics compared to Taobao, there was a problem of duplicate construction between Tmall and Taobao at that time, which is now commonly referred to as the chimney-style system architecture.

The chimney-style system architecture has caused a lot of duplicate construction and resource waste. What should we do? The most natural idea is to integrate the duplicate organizations and systems. Therefore, the Alibaba Sharing Business Unit was officially born, responsible for platform transformation of the public parts in various front-end systems. After a painful exploration, it took the opportunity of Juhuasuan’s outbreak to truly establish the important position of the Alibaba Sharing Business Unit and sow the seeds of Alibaba’s large-scale platform strategy.

# 2015 Keywords: Alibaba middle platform strategy born

History is like a train traveling between ridges, everything is moving forward in a predetermined direction at a leisurely pace.

The new species of Zhongtai is also constantly nurturing with the passage of time, waiting for an opportunity to come.

In 2015, this opportunity finally arrived.

Next is the story that everyone is talking about: In 2015, Jack Ma led Alibaba executives to visit Supercell, the world’s most successful mobile game company located in Finland. You may feel unfamiliar with this company, but when it comes to the games developed by this company, I believe you have heard of them. Famous games such as “Clash of Clans”, “Island Raiders”, and “Cartoon Farm” are all produced by this game company.

However, what touched Jack Ma and Alibaba’s executive team at that time was that the company that gave birth to so many globally popular games had less than 200 employees. Each team responsible for a game had an average of only 5 to 7 team members. The team had sufficient freedom to decide what kind of product to develop, and then the public beta version would be launched as quickly as possible for the market to judge and verify the quality of the product. Once the product failed, it was quickly abandoned. At this time, there would be no punishment, but the team would raise a glass to celebrate and immediately make adjustments to continue to quickly find new directions.

Hmm, yes, this is the typical routine of Lean Startup.

However, in order for this mechanism to operate normally, there must be a prerequisite, which is that the construction time of the product must be short enough, and the cost of trial and error must be low enough. Only in this way can the team ensure that through continuous learning from failures and continuous iterative adjustments in a large number of trials and errors, the correct direction can be found as soon as possible, and the innovative and successful Progress Bar can move forward quickly.

What supports this mechanism is the common and universal game materials and algorithms that Supercell has accumulated over 6 years in the game development process. Based on these basic materials and algorithms like Lego building blocks, it is possible to support several small teams to quickly develop a new game in a few weeks, just like building blocks.

This approach touched the visiting Alibaba executive team, and this concept coincides with the “thick platform, thin application” architecture direction that Alibaba and the industry have been trying and conceiving for many years. It was this visit that strengthened the Alibaba management’s determination to adjust the organizational structure and accelerated the formal birth of Alibaba’s middle platform strategy.

Shortly thereafter, on December 7th, 2015, Zhang Yong, then CEO of Alibaba Group, stated in an internal letter: “Starting today, we will fully launch Alibaba Group’s 2018 middle platform strategy, and build a more innovative and flexible’big middle platform, small front desk 'organizational mechanism and business mechanism that is in line with the DT era.”

With this, Alibaba’s middle platform strategy is officially born, and the previous “thick platform, thin application” has also become “big middle platform, small front desk”.

Interestingly, when Alibaba’s mid-platform strategy was first proposed in 2015, it didn’t cause much of a stir in my impression. At that time, people were still talking about Hua Qian Gu and “My Skateboard Shoes”, while the internet circle was talking more about Internet + and O2O. Little did they know, a new battlefield had already begun to breed, and the seeds had been planted.

# 2017 Keywords: Emergence

With the birth of the mid-platform concept in 2015, after a silent but turbulent 2016, we gradually began to hear more and more voices about the mid-platform in the community in 2017. Alibaba and Didi Chuxing coincidentally began to share their experiences in mid-platform building, and books related to the mid-platform also appeared on the market.

The collective voice of internet giants has brought the concept of middle platform back into everyone’s view after two years.

As far as I know, many companies, whether they are internet giants or some strategic enterprises, are starting to re-examine and attach importance to this emerging new concept at this point in time.

Most of the earliest companies to start their own mid-platform planning and construction also began at this time. It was also at that time that I became familiar with the mid-platform, paid attention to and studied it, and actually participated in the actual mid-platform projects of each customer.

However, at that time, everyone faced many problems and difficulties. Companies like Alibaba or Didi Chuxing shared their middle platforms from the perspective of their own development process and problems. There is no doubt about this, but when everyone looks back at their own mid-platform building, each company’s situation is different, and each company’s problems are also different. What should their middle platform look like? How to build it? Many of these questions cannot be directly answered in books or sharing, and can only be explored bit by bit by themselves.

At this point, some brave pioneers began their respective mid-platform exploration journeys, although this was destined to be a path full of thorns.

Looking back now, some of the explorations at that time ultimately failed, while others are still ongoing. However, in any case, the explorations and experiences gained and lost by these pioneers have cleared many obstacles for our current understanding and construction of the middle platform. Without these explorations and reflections, there would not be the current experiences and consensus.

# 2018 Keywords: Full Outbreak

In mid-2018, Zhongtai had been accumulating momentum for a long time and finally ushered in a comprehensive outbreak.

This is something I have personally experienced. I remember it very clearly. It was at noon on September 9, 2018, when my colleagues were all taking a nap on their desks. Finally, I took the opportunity to post an article that I had been holding back for more than three months to my official account as usual. This article is about my thoughts on the middle platform over the past year. In my opinion, it is an ordinary article.

What happened afterwards far exceeded my imagination. My article was reposted by various community accounts in the afternoon, and the reading volume quickly exceeded 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000… For me, who usually only has a few hundred views when writing articles, I was a bit at a loss. At that time, I felt that all my friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends were reposting this article from the platform.

That was also the first time I felt the heat of the middle platform. It had been accumulating momentum for a long time and finally ushered in its own outbreak.

But only this one big discussion is not enough. You may still remember what happened afterwards. Come, let me quickly review it with you.

• On September 30, 2018, Tencent announced its largest organizational change in seven years, establishing the Cloud and Smart Industries Group (CSIG). At the same time, Tencent established a new technology committee and announced that it will build a technology mid-platform in the future.
• On November 26th, 2018, Alibaba announced an organizational upgrade. The Alibaba Cloud Ali Cloud Aliyun business group was upgraded to the Alibaba Cloud Ali Cloud Aliyun Intelligent Business Group, fully integrating mid-platform intelligence with Alibaba Cloud Ali Cloud Aliyun.
• On December 21, 2018, JD.com Group Human Resources released an announcement regarding the organizational restructuring of JD.com Mall. The announcement stated: “Under the new organizational structure, JD.com Mall will be customer-centric and divided into front, middle, and back offices. The middle platform will provide professional capabilities for front-end business operations and innovation.”
• ……

It is precisely because of the dazzling collective operation of this wave of internet giants that they have all spoken out for the relay of the middle platform, officially pushing the middle platform onto the stage and ushering in a comprehensive outbreak.

# The fog of 2019 still exists

The popularity of the middle platform exploded at the end of 2018 and continued into 2019, showing no signs of fading, but instead increasing.

However, despite the outbreak, it does not mean that the previous problems have been solved. The problems and confusion still exist, and have not become clear due to the popularity of the concept. Instead, as more and more companies follow suit, the problems increase instead of decrease.

• What is the difference between the middle platform and the platform?
• How many types of middle platforms are there? Which ones are not? Is there a construction order?
• How to build the middle platform? Where to start? How to calculate the end?
• Does the middle platform need organizational adjustment? How to adjust?
• How to verify the construction effect of the middle platform?
• ……

And these issues have been troubling me for the past few years. Now, after such a long time of exploration, research, and learning from predecessors, I have some of my own thoughts and summaries. Now, I am sharing these contents with you to explore the answers to these questions and help you clear some obstacles in your mid-platform building.

# Summarize thinking

Today, I reviewed the development process of the middle platform with you. Finally, let’s see if we can answer the question at the beginning: Why is the middle platform so popular?

Just as many trends are not formed by a single force, I think the popularity of mid-platform is at least due to the combination of the following four aspects.

1. The model effect of Internet companies. This is beyond doubt. At present, the model and benchmark effect of Internet companies, especially major companies, is still very strong. What’s more, the attitude of Internet companies towards the middle platform is so highly consistent that it is rare in the past. The construction effect is also really visible to everyone, which makes people envious.

2. Why are Internet companies so unanimous in promoting the mid-platform? There is a deeper reason behind it. This year’s industrial Internet is booming. In the mid-to-late stage of consumer Internet, the battlefield on the consumer side is becoming increasingly white-hot. Internet companies have turned their attention to the supply side in order to pursue sustainable growth. This is why ToB is also unusually popular this year. The cloud and mid-platform strategy is a very good entry point for Internet companies to enter traditional industries. Therefore, we see more and more Internet companies participating in the process of cloud migration and digital transformation of traditional enterprises, bringing their own technologies and practices to traditional industries. Throughout the process, the mid-platform is indeed a good breakthrough point and weapon.

3. As the saying goes, it takes two to tango. This timing does indeed coincide with the transition of some industries from systematization to platformization. Through years of informatization construction and accumulation, the information systems that should be built in the enterprise have also been built, such as ERP, CRM, etc. The enterprises that started informatization construction earlier also began to experience pain points such as chimneys and data islands mentioned earlier in their internal systems. And the enterprises that started informatization construction relatively later also want to take a shortcut through this mid-platform wave and achieve it in one step. At this time, a whirlwind of mid-platform struck, and every enterprise felt the need and pain points of doing mid-platform, and began their own mid-platform planning and construction.

4. Finally, I think there is another very important and fundamental reason, that is, the overall economic trend in the past two years has not been very good. Uncertainty and unpredictability are constantly impacting various enterprises and even industries, and the fear and anxiety of enterprise managers about the future development of enterprises have doubled. At this time, Internet enterprises use the mid-platform strategy to precipitate and reuse their capabilities, use certainty to cope with uncertainty, and have the ability and ideas of rapid trial and error and rapid innovation, which allows traditional enterprises to see a breakthrough direction. When the economic situation is good, everyone is either busy expanding their business quickly and doing what they can quickly, or they are stuck in their mature business, harvesting on time, without strong motivation to change. But when the economic situation is severe, the pressure and fear are becoming more and more serious. In order to maintain the survival and sustainable development of the enterprise in the future, or to prepare for the next round of improvement, the mid-platform strategy has become the choice of more and more traditional enterprises and industries, following the example of the Internet industry.

In short, the so-called favorable timing, geographical location, and human resources have brought together various factors to give birth to this wave of mid-platform hotspots. Is the popularity of mid-platform just a flash in the pan? Or will it become another important milestone in IT development like Cloud Service and microservices? It is still uncertain, but I personally believe that the latter has a very high possibility.

Finally, I also want to know why you are interested in the middle platform. Why do you think the middle platform is so popular? What is your biggest concern about the middle platform now?

Looking forward to fully discussing with you in the column. You are also welcome to share today’s content with your friends. See you in the next lecture!