A case of documentation powering product sales? We spotted this interesting article from Lee Hutchinson on the ars technica Web site on how Philips is using documentation to increase the popularity of its Hue lighting system:
Philips delivers promised dev docs for colorful Hue LED lights
Since the system’s release, Philips has promised that the API and SDK for the lights would be made available for royalty-free use, and that has finally happened…
It’s friendlier intellectual property behavior from a multinational corporation than we’re used to seeing. Rather than attempting to monetize app development for the Hue lights and charging a developer fee for entry, Philips has tossed the community the keys and told developers to get busy coding…
I’m most excited about there being more (and better) applications for providing fine control over the lights…
Now that the official documentation is out there, I have high hopes that the community will begin to deliver polished Hue control applications, for both the desktop and for smartphones.
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