Title: The power of platforms for software development in open innovation networks

Authors: Ahmad Ghazawneh

Addresses: Informatics Department, Jonkoping International Business School, Jonkoping University, Jonkoping, SE-551 11, Sweden

Abstract: Firms seeking to satisfy customer needs should not only rely on internal but also external sources of innovations for the development of their products and services. Consequently, they need to shift their centralised business approaches by adopting the paradigm of open innovation and the concept of platforms to harness the value of innovation networks. The aim of this paper is to examine the nature of platforms and how their adoption can stimulate external contributions of third-party developers. Based on the analysis which illustrated three platform adoption examples from Apple, Facebook and Twitter it is found that a platform approach and its four main elements (components, knowledge, processes and people) affect the entire innovation network and its two dimension of translations. It is also found that each of the three firms applied its own particular strategy while adopting the four main platform elements to suit its own innovation networks.

Keywords: open innovation; innovation networks; product platforms; iPhone; Twitter; Facebook; third-party developers; strategy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNVO.2011.042415

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2011 Vol.9 No.2, pp.140 - 154

Published online: 21 Feb 2015 *

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