Palantir Foundry Templates: An App Store For The Enterprise?

Codestrap is starting to release content, in collaboration with Palantir, to demonstrate how the software can be utilized when building various different applications.

His latest video on his YouTube channel highlights the distribution layer of Palantir.

The video starts by a clip of my interview with Richard Barlow, CEO of a Palantir SPAC - Wejo.

I asked Richard why Palantir couldn't just copy their product and do the same thing. His response:

Foundry as a distribution platform of data insights can go so much quicker than WEJO in terms of the the distribution they've already built in terms of ERP platforms and in terms of the scale of Foundry so it became a perfect partnership where the core discipline of processing real-time data it remains as wejo that is our IP but then we're now working with with the likes of pounce's foundry platform to supercharge our distribution.

Codestrap believes the distribution engine that Richard is speaking about is driven by Foundry Templates - the focus of the video.

What Are Foundry Templates?

Codestrap explains,

Inside foundry you can take application modules you've written in their visual tools like workshop their no code tool or in code repositories or any other feature and package it up as a template which can then be imported and used by any other foundry user into different foundry installs one could imagine this powering a sort of app store for enterprise in a way that cannot be done today with traditional SAAS that's integrated typically through a bunch of restful web services.

Codestrap is referring to how modules used within Foundry can actually be utilized by other uses of Foundry - so if one individual decides to use a module for a certain task or build on top of it, others can as well. This adds to a network like effect for the platform, allowing it to have a thriving ecosystem of individuals that contribute to the network with different applications, or templates, they use Foundry for.

This matters in relationship to Palantir's ability to get more companies building their applications on top of their software.

Most startups, if they have an app, are building their businesses on top of Apple's app store and Google's play store. Apple and Google control the modern operating systems for people to get access to applications.

If you are a company, you must be on those app stores. Their scale is too large to ignore, and if you did ignore it, how else would you get people to download your app?

Palantir wants Foundry to have a similar presence in terms of allowing developers and startups to see the software as a network that is constantly being updated and built with new features on top of it in regards to workflows, data analytics, etc. New companies should be able to easily see the value and integrate elements and modules of Foundry into their business, using the templates to grow and innovate quicker.

This means more businesses using Palantir and more value being generated for their software to the next generation of developers.

SPAC Strategy

In the actual video, which will be going live on Codestrap's YouTube channel 5PM PST/8PM EST on April 7th, you can see him actually build out and use a Foundry Template example.

One thing he mentions in the video, which really allowed me to have a deeper insight into why this template based network-effect strategy made sense when developing an entire ecosystem around Palantir's software was when he brought up the SPACS.

He speculates,

To me this is like this is how their SPAC strategy is starting to make sense to me because now I start to understand oh i get it now you actually could enable that this kind of new startup culture that your new group of startups that are going to take advantage of all these network effects you've created with all these industry verticals where people are using your product Hyundai heavy industries how many problems could person building foundry templates solve for all of the people that are gonna be part of that consortium right so like it's really possible that they're that they are playing some kind of 4d chess and that this sort of ecosystem they envision for foundry is really what they're building.

When you watch the video yourself, you should get a deeper understanding for how Palantir aims to empower the next generation of developers building software on top of Foundry. If one SPAC builds something that another SPAC could use, multiplied by 1000 companies using it one day, all building different applications and modules - then there would be serious value in Foundry as being the home for all of those unique elements that could be used by thousands of companies within the network.

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Thanks for reading the article. If you'd like to get in contact, please @ me on twitter here or email me at amit@dailypalantir.com.