Analyzing competitive and collaborative differences among mobile ecosystems using abstracted strategy networks

Karhu, Kimmo; Tang, Tingan; Hämäläinen, Matti

doi:10.1016/j.tele.2013.09.003

Cited by 28 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…479-497, © 2018 (such as selling in-app ads). Such access can also be separately opened to each participant group (Karhu et al 2014). For example, on the smartphone platforms, the platform host, in addition to granting access to developers, can separately grant access to third-party app store providers.…”

Section: Two Forms Of Platform Opennessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploiting and Defending Open Digital Platforms with Boundary Resources: Android’s Five Platform Forks

Karhu

Gustafsson

Lyytinen

2018

Information Systems Research

Self Cite

196

203

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Abstract. Digital platforms can be opened in two ways to promote innovation and value generation. A platform owner can open access for third-party participants by establishing boundary resources, such as APIs and an app store, to allow complements to be developed and shared for the platform. Furthermore, to foster cooperation with the complementors, the platform owner can use an open-source license boundary resource to open and share the platform's core resources. However, openness that is too wide renders the platform and its shared resources vulnerable to strategic exploitation. To our knowledge, platform strategies that promote such negative outcomes have remained unexplored in past research. We identify and analyze a prominent form of strategic exploitation called platform forking in which a hostile firm, i.e., a forker, bypasses the host's controlling boundary resources and exploits the platform's shared resources, core and complements, to create a competing platform business. We investigate platform forking on Google's Android platform, a successful open digital platform, by analyzing the fate of five Android forks and related exploitative activities. We observe several strategies that illustrate alternative ways of bundling a platform fork from a set of host, forker, and other resources. We also scrutinize Google's responses, which modified Android's boundary resources to curb exploitation and retain control. In this paper, we make two contributions. First, we present a theorization of the competitive advantage of open digital platforms and specifically expose platform forking as an exploitative and competitive platform strategy. Second, we extend platform governance literature by showing how boundary resources, which are mainly viewed as cooperative governance mechanisms, are also used to combat platform forking and thus sustain a platform's competitive advantage.

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Section: Two Forms Of Platform Opennessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploiting and Defending Open Digital Platforms with Boundary Resources: Android’s Five Platform Forks

Karhu

Gustafsson

Lyytinen

2018

Information Systems Research

Self Cite

196

203

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“…In addition, Shah [30] found that, for some developers, motivation to work in a FOSS project evolves over time and participation becomes a hobby, but these developers who see their participation as a hobby are critical to the long-term sustainability of the software ecosystem as they take on tasks that might otherwise go undone and work to improve the source code. Similarly, Draxler and colleagues [11] [19] suggest that different mobile ecosystems choose to establish different relationships with their stakeholders: some of them are based more on competition, while others are more collaborative. Note that this work is both about the business and the social aspects of proprietary ecosystems, but, the social is related to the relationships among companies, not individual developers.…”

Section: Sustainability and Social Aspects Of Software Ecosystemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other countries indicated by developers included: Bolivia, Denmark, Finland, Georgia, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Sweden and Switzerland. The location information is not required by GitHub, which explains the amount of missing information about the location of some informants (19). The three most cited platforms were Android (50), Web (40), and iOS (39), but informants could select multiple platforms.…”

Section: Surveymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social Side of Software Platform Ecosystems

Souza

Filho

Miranda

et al. 2016

Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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Software ecosystems as a paradigm for large-scale software development encompass a complex mix of technical, business, and social aspects. While significant research has been conducted to understand both the technical and business aspects, the social aspects of software ecosystems are less well understood. To close this gap, this paper presents the results of an empirical study aimed at understanding the influence of social aspects on developers' participation in software ecosystems. We conducted 25 interviews with mobile software developers and an online survey with 83 respondents from the mobile software development community. Our results point out a complex social system based on continued interaction and mutual support between different actors, including developers, friends, end users, developers from large companies, and online communities. These findings highlight the importance of social aspects in the sustainability of software ecosystems both during the initial adoption phase as well as for long-term permanence of developers.

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“…The most commonly considered by researchers stakeholders are a (mobile) platform provider (MPP, 12 studies), a mobile device manufacturer (MDM, 10 studies), a mobile network operator (MNO, 10 studies), an application developer (DEV, 10 studies), and a content provider (CP, 8 studies). (Karhu et al, 2014) CP, DEV, MDM, MNO, MPP; ad service provider (Oh et al, 2015) DEV, MPP (MNO and MDM) (Gao and Krogstie, 2015) CP, DEV, MDM, MNO, MPP; regulators, end users (Lee et al, 2016) DEV, MDM, MNO, MPP; network & infrastructure providers, internet service providers (Suh and Lee, 2017) CP, DEV, MDM, MNO, MPP; silicon vendors & component providers, media service providers, internet service providers (Nieborg and Helmond, 2018) CP, MPP; end users, advertisers, and "others" Surprisingly, the main stakeholders of the mobile ecosystem have not significantly changed since the early mobile ecosystem studies 1 (Basole and Karla, 2011;Xia et al, 2010). However, the function and ownership of mobile platforms have considerably evolved.…”

Section: Past Evolution Of the Mobile Ecosystemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Technology and value network evolution in telehealth

Vesselkov

Hämmáinen

Töyli

2018

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

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Vesselkov, Hämmäinen, and Töyli formed the idea, constructed models and scenarios. Vesselkov conducted the interviews and wrote the paper. Hämmäinen and Töyli edited the text.Publication IV: "Design and governance of mHealth data sharing" Vesselkov formed the idea, collected the data, conducted interviews and wrote the paper. Hämmäinen and Töyli provided comments on the analysis and edited the text.Publication V: "Internet of things (IoT) platform competition: consumer switching versus provider multihoming" Basaure and Vesselkov formed the idea. Basaure designed the model, run the simulations, and wrote most of the paper. Vesselkov supported the modeling, wrote Sections 2.5 and 2.6, commented other sections, and edited the text. Töyli provided comments on the analysis and edited the text. Publication VI: "Technology and Value Network Evolution in Telehealth"Vesselkov, Hämmäinen, and Töyli formed the idea. Vesselkov collected the data and wrote the paper. Hämmäinen and Töyli provided comments on the analysis and edited the text. RQ1. How do mobile IoT usage patterns differ from consumer devices and across industries?RQ2. How could embedded SIM technology affect the mobile ecosystem? RQ3. How could collaboration and competition be governed in emerging consumer IoT data platforms and particularly mobile health data platforms? RQ4. How could mobile platform providers acting as mobile health data platform providers position themselves in the ecosystem of the healthcare industry?

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Analyzing competitive and collaborative differences among mobile ecosystems using abstracted strategy networks

Cited by 28 publications

References 21 publications

Exploiting and Defending Open Digital Platforms with Boundary Resources: Android’s Five Platform Forks

Exploiting and Defending Open Digital Platforms with Boundary Resources: Android’s Five Platform Forks

The Social Side of Software Platform Ecosystems

Technology and value network evolution in telehealth

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