Battle.net to Rival Steam?

The Escapist cornered Rob Pardo at the GDC 2010 to ask if Blizzard has plans to license Battle.net to third parties.

Rob Pardo responded it’s a theme the team has talked about and basically would be a lot of work and a challenge on their end to maintain. It would also represent a somewhat competitive platform for Blizzard giving the example that if Blizzard was to release a game and a third party game was on sale at the same time.