Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries

Economists now recognize that many industries, including the manufacture of software platforms, are guided by economic principles that differ in important ways from those that govern traditional industries. Many of these two-sided or multisided industries are subject to network effects, which were studied extensively by economists during the 1980s

Multisided platforms must consider marginal costs and price sensitivity in pricing, like single-sided businesses, but they must also consider which side values the other side more. Software platforms generally charge low prices on one side in order to attract customers who can then be made available to the other side. Getting the balance right amon

In practice, it generally does matter which side pays, because two key assumptions made in the textbook discussion don’t apply. First, there are often significant transactions costs that prevent the customers on the two sides of most markets from just “sorting it out” themselves. Take the payment card example. Although most card systems prohibit me

Interestingly, many are made by Microsoft, which integrated into mouse production in 1983 mainly to be sure that the sort of mouse specified by its nascent Windows system would be available in the marketplace. Microsoft developed and patented a mouse that could connect to a PC through an existing serial port rather than to a special card installed

The console video gaming industry operates a radically different business model from other software platform industries. Game manufacturers tightly integrate hardware and software systems; they offer consoles to consumers at less than manufacturing cost, and they earn profits by developing games and charging third-party game developers for access t

Second, competition in most real markets is less intense than in textbook markets. Competition among suppliers on at least one side of twosided businesses is often imperfect, either because there are only a few major sellers or because products are differentiated.

Getting the balance right seems to be more important than building shares. Platform markets do not tip quickly because as a practical matter, it takes time to get things right. And the first entrant often does not win in the end: many other firms may come in and successfully tweak the pricing structure, product design, or business model.

Getting the console into the hands of many people increased the demand for the games it could play. Moreover, it made buying a console less risky for households, who had no good way of knowing how valuable the console would be until they saw the games produced for it. The game-console company, which was in the best position to forecast the quality

Four key strategies helped Microsoft obtain the leading position in personal computers: (1) offering lower prices to users than its competitors; (2) intensely promoting API-based software services to developers; (3) promoting the development of peripherals, sometimes through direct subsidies, in order to increase the value of the Windows platform t