Tesla Set the Bar, Now Will Others Follow?

I have to apologise to you.

When I started Tech Insider earlier this year I promised I would keep things simple. I said I would make complex ideas and concepts easy to understand. I said I’d spare you the jargon and gobbledygook, and speak to you like a normal person.

Well today, I’m breaking that promise…sort of.

Today there’s going to be some technical mumbo-jumbo. It’s an important part of the story I’m about to tell you. Mind you, I don’t necessarily understand all the mumbo-jumbo myself. And I’ll do my best to break it down for you.

However, these are highly technical explanations. And I’m no physics professor studying quantum mechanics, so there is a point to which my brain will go. Thankfully however I’m pretty sure you won’t need to be a member of Mensa to understand where I’m going today.

Last week I wrote about Tesla Automotive [NASDAQ:TSLA] and the release of their patents. I theorised that perhaps the real motivation behind this disruptive move is Tesla’s expanding Supercharger network.

But there’s far more to this story than Tesla’s business case behind their move. Sure it might reshape how the company makes future profits, in a good way I might add. However, this move has far greater repercussions, not just across the electric car industry, but also across all business globally.

Patent 7,698,078

I want to stress the importance of what Tesla has done. And I’m going to tell you why it’s so important to the wider business community.

You see, Tesla releasing their patents is like a case study of what ‘open source’ businesscould be like.

This goes against any kind of traditional business model. It’s like Apple telling everyone how to make an iPhone or like Coke giving away its secret recipe.

From Tesla’s perspective, this is all about ‘technology leadership’. In Elon Musk’s own words, ‘We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard.’

The question this also raises is, ‘what patents?’

So here’s an example of what Tesla are giving up.

Read the rest of this article at Money Morning