Abstract

Computer platforms provide an integrated architecture of hardware and software standards as a basis for developing complementary assets. The most successful platforms were owned by proprietary sponsors that controlled platform evolution and appropriated associated rewards.

Responding to the Internet and open source systems, three traditional vendors of proprietary platforms experimented with hybrid strategies which attempted to combine the advantages of open source software while retaining control and differentiation. Such hybrid standards strategies reflect the competing imperatives for adoption and appropriability, and suggest the conditions under which such strategies may be preferable to either the purely open or purely proprietary alternatives.

Author Keywords: Open source; Standards competition; Computer architecture; Innovation returns

Article Outline

1. Introduction

2. Proprietary platform strategies

2.1. Dynamics of proprietary platform competition

2.2. Mainframes: vertically integrated proprietary platforms

2.3. Personal computer brings horizontal platform control

2.4. Workstations: Unix and open systems

2.5. Assessment

3. Emergence of open source platforms

3.1. Linux and other Unix-like platforms

3.2. “Free software” versus “open source”

4. Context for the study

4.1. Responding to the Microsoft challenge

4.2. Leveraging openness while keeping differentiation

5. Apple: re-use and leverage

5.1. Strategic position in mid-1990s

5.2. Shifting to Unix

5.3. Building a new OS on open source parts

6. IBM: from platforms to applications

6.1. Strategic position in mid-1990s

6.2. Phase I: application software

6.3. Phase II: system software

7. Sun: opening new platforms

7.1. Strategic position in mid-1990s

7.2. Strategy 1: new platforms

7.3. Strategy 2: partly-open source

7.4. Strategy 3: if you can’t beat them, join them

8. Effect of open source on platform strategies

8.1. Comparing strategies by Apple, IBM and Sun

8.2. Microsoft’s response

9. Discussion

9.1. Shifting from proprietary to open source strategies

9.1.1. Proprietary platforms

9.1.2. Open standards

9.1.3. Open sources

9.2. Future platform strategies

9.3. Implications for open source development

9.4. Future research

Acknowledgements

References