FBS Admin Keller Williams has gotten a lot of people talking about their latest initiative stemming from their original Keller Cloud vision. Here’s Inman, Rob Hahn, Greg Robertson, and the real juice is in the comments everywhere but especially Facebook, to which, of course, linking is pretty much impossible.
Anyway, much of the controversy seems to be around Keller Williams’ apparent rejection of all “bolt on” technology and their vision for becoming a technology company building everything end-to-end. To the extent that actually is the vision KW is pursuing, I’d agree that’s ill-advised. No single company can or should build everything.
What I’ve always thought the Keller Cloud was going to be about was KW creating APIs that they would require vendors to adopt so that KW would be assured of standardized data that moves between all their applications and that they can leverage for whatever technology they want to develop in-house such as Kelle.
By the way, this is exactly what we’ve been advising our MLS customers to do: Invest in standard APIs that allow you and others to innovate while ensuring data portability, control, and ownership. This is what the “cloud” is about, allowing the market to work and innovation to flourish.
What is a mistake — and the same mistake I’ve seen the NAR make — is that, instead of focusing on infrastructure and building competitive and collaborative ecosystems, they decide to build shiny baubles. That’s a costly mistake.