During the past decade, the public has become fascinated both by the impact of technological change on our daily lives and also by the management of the companies working to create these changes. Perhaps no other issues in current business practice have been discussed so frequently in the mass media. Francisco‐Javier Olleros has taken an insightful look at an interesting yet much ignored phenomenon, namely, the frequent demise of firms which pioneer the commercialization of radically new technologies. Against the background of today's high‐tech fever, the discussion presented here should help us develop a more realistic and sober view of new, emerging industries and of the merits and limitations of technology‐driven competitive strategies.

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Inspired by the open source software (OSS)

Currently, all major IT and telecom firms are busy trying to stimulate non-contractual complementary developments around their own core competences and offerings. But little has been done to explain the logic, strengths, and weaknesses of non-contractual innovation. The literature on open-platform leadership recognises the importance of non-contractual innovation, but only within the limited confines of a normative approach based on two implicit assumptions: that a platform's core and periphery are sharply and easily differentiated and that platforms are always grown and orchestrated from a monolithic core. Through analysis of two cases of decentralised open innovation: the emergence of video rental stores and the emergence of desktop-publishing systems. I argue that these assumptions do not apply to all open platforms. I conclude that by forcing a hierarchical framework onto the analysis, the normative approach underplays the role of non-contractual innovation and turns a blind eye to the radically self-organised and unforeseeable nature of some platforms' success.