Over the past decade, we have investigated dozens of companies that have attempted to formulate and implement platform strategies. These companies operated in a variety of industries including computing, telecommunications, electronic appliances, semiconductors, enterprise software, data storage, automobiles, Web portals and electronic payment systems. The major companies we studied in the first phase of our research included Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Palm, and NTT DoCoMo, the Tokyo-based mobile communications company. We interviewed hundreds of managers and engineers and complemented the interviews with analysis of companies’ archival records and company and industry data. This first research stage aimed at uncovering the drivers of success at established platform leaders. The results of that work were published inMIT Sloan Management Review in 2002, as well as in our bookPlatform Leadership (HBS Press, 2002).
The focus of our initial work was on how Intel, Microsoft, Cisco and other companies had been able to drive industry innovation and sustain positions of platform leadership. We identified four “levers” or mechanisms through which successful platform leaders were able to “architect” or influence external innovation. The first lever was company scope: the choice of what activities to perform in-house versus what to leave to other companies — in particular, whether the platform leader should make at least some of its own complements in-house. The second lever was technology design and intellectual property: what functionality... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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