Publications

Journal Article

The concept of a platform describes a set of system components that is strongly interdependent with most other system components, and that also co-determines the architecture of the system's outcome.

This concept underlies all kinds of technology-based products, collaborations that produce multi-product systems, and transactions between distinct sets of market participants.

In this paper, the author provides an overview of the growing scientific literature on technological platforms, and also identify three distinct, but related, literature streams: (1) product platforms (2) industry platforms and (3) two-sided markets.

In doing so, the author focuses on empirical studies and mathematical models. For each stream, he then goes on to describe the type of platform that the stream relates to, review the stream's major studies (sorted by key strategic issues), and summarizes and synthesizes the overall findings before linking them to organizational theory and highlighting some potential gaps for future examination.

In closing, the author moves to a comparison across streams and identify some currently unexplored aspects of the platform concept.