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How the innate physical properties of different technologies influence the strategy and structure of the organizations implementing the technologies, the sequel to In Baldwin then investigates the dynamics of strategy for firms in platform ecosystems. Such firms create value by solving technical bottlenecks--technical barriers to performance that arise in different parts of the system as it evolves. They capture value by controlling and defending strategic bottlenecks--components that are (1) essential to the functioning of some part of the system; (2) unique; and (3) controlled by a profit-seeking enterprise. Strategic bottlenecks can be acquired by solving technical bottlenecks. They can be destroyed via tactics such as substitution, reverse engineering, bypassing the bottleneck, and enveloping a smaller bottleneck within a larger one. Strategy in platform ecosystems can thus be viewed as the effective management of technical and strategic bottlenecks within a modular technical system.
List of contents
Table of Contents
1: Introduction: The Changing Economic System
2: Foundational Approaches to Understanding Technical System
3: A New Theory: The Spectrum of Complementarity
4: A New Method: Value Structure Analysis
5: One End of the Spectrum: Flow Production Processes and Systematic Management
6: The Mass Production Paradigm
7: A Different Paradigm: Platform Ecosystems
8: Moore’s Law, the Semiconductor Industry, and High Rates of Technical Change
9: The Rise of Open Platform Ecosystems: The IBM PC
10: Capturing Value in Standards-based Platform Ecosytems: Wintel
11: Capturing Value in Modular Production Networks: Dell
12: The Globalization of Modular Production Networks
13: Capturing Value in Digital Exchange Platform Ecosystems: Google and Apple
14: Software is Different
15: The Origins and Rationale for Open Source Projects and Communities
16: Open Source and Corporations
17: How Technology Shapes Organizations
About the author
Carliss Y. Baldwin is William L. White Professor of Business Administration, Emerita at Harvard Business School. With Kim Clark, she authored Design Rules, Volume 1: The Power of Modularity (MIT Press).
