Comments on the article:
A valuable contribution introducing research areas on Platforms in the context of digitization. The authors’ “concomitant” view of platforms from diverse disciplines is a must-read for anyone who is looking for fresh and new glimpses into the “whole” about the much-discussed social, economic, strategic, and architectural angles to platforms. The questions in Table 1 are thought-provoking –the paper addresses the need for further research thru these questions. These questions will need much debate and discussion in depth. Probing into the disciplines of management and mathematics, sociologies and economics may get to justified answers. The broader theme of these questions seems to be on the challenges of factors of time and boundaries on ecosystem infrastructure development and the constraints on interactions.
The discussion and argument on the view of platforms as layered, modular systems highlighting the extent of modularity (coupling) and layering observed in platforms enabling evolution and emergence along the boundaries is extensive in this article. The authors also relate modularity to functional partitioning leading to organizational design and the role of firms participating in the ecosystem. Tradeoffs of tightly coupled components with centralized governance versus loosely coupled components with decentralized governance on innovation efforts is another area of focus here.
The discussion of the advantage of multi-sided platforms over the digital supply chains is an exercise for management decisions. Note the example of Amazon offering strategies to switch to physical with the strengths of digital infrastructures. The authors argue the need for theoretical research addressing the paradoxical tensions between the monopoly and control of digital infrastructures and the “democratizing force” of digital platforms. The ground is covered on platform envelopment for developing business for third-party developers and understanding the tradeoffs faced by complement providers in multihoming. Blockchain infrastructures and platforms challenges for scaling are questioned.
The authors chose to discuss online labor platforms from the angle of need-based outsourcing mostly. They also mention them as the testing ground for human and machine intelligence experiments. The challenges of these platforms arise from the pricing a task as well as freelancer and employer relations. When it comes to policy implications the topics covered are value created by data, US efforts on network policies, the European and US take on data privacy, the EU lead over consumer data protection thru GDPR.
The customer journeys in the digital platform space are not taken up in this introductory article. Perhaps later. Social media networks, unfortunately, appear to be positioned negatively. This year, Facebook user data misuse by Cambridge Analytica has been public news.
The authors discussed social networks data highlighting the issues with ability/ inability to audit and control used after data collection. Fake news spread via Twitter databases is another concern.
The authors discussed social networks data highlighting the issues with ability/ inability to audit and control used after data collection. Fake news spread via Twitter databases is another concern.
The authors discuss the pros and cons of net neutrality suggesting new regulation speaking of platforms as networks with modular, layered architectures enabling data flows between a variety of devices and applications. Industry level challenges talked about in the article focus on regulatory issues and controversies to allow for entrepreneurship, curb anti-competitive behaviors.
Popular platform strategy books and courses start out discussing the failure of MySpace and the popularity of Facebook to get the message across about network effects, core interactions as value units along with other basic concepts such as personalization, feedback loops, reach about platforms. These topics are not touched upon in this article. Also, there are no in-depth discussions on the services angle at the SAAS, PAAS, IAAS levels.
The article is a beginning of much-needed discussion and research on the complex systemic view of platforms. Looking forward to more of such work on platforms.
The research on patterns of service platforms based on necessities of communities (such as the shared assets like time banks, one time services like TaskRabbit, elderly and medical services apps) is not mentioned. The services include social services, banking, and retail services, time banks, asset sharing, and rentals. Services are becoming more granular with expanding boundaries for those who are interacting in the platform ecosystem. The reach of an asset is permeating via different channels - using the web as the platform for service delivery directly to the consumer who makes a personal decision to participate in the ecosystem. The solution is a real-time pull, personalized solution using a mobile app. The interactions on these apps are real-time, personalized, and have a built-in feedback system. The article does not mention the growing trends of platforms offering shared assets and social services.
The article is a beginning of much-needed discussion and research on the complex systemic view of platforms. Looking forward to more of such work on platforms.
The papers chosen for the special issue of Information Systems Research on this discussion on Platforms along with many other relevant articles are the following:
Cennamo C, Ozalp H, Kretschmer T (2018) Platforms architecture
and quality trade-offs of multihoming complements. Inform. Systems
Res. 29(2):000–000
Foerderer J, Kude T, Mithas S, HeinzlA(2018) Does platform owner's
entry crowd out innovation? Evidence from Google photos.
Inform. Systems Res. 29(2):000–000.
Karhu K, Gustafsson R, Lyytinen K (2018) Exploiting and defending
open digital platforms with boundary resources: Android’s five
platform forks. Inform. Systems Res. 29(2):000–000
Lee HCB, Ba S, Li X, Stallaert J (2018) Salience bias in crowdsourcing
contests. Inform. Systems Res. 29(2):000–000.
Niculescu MF, Wu DJ, Xu L (2018) Strategic intellectual property
sharing: Competition on an open technology platform under
network effects. Inform. Systems Res. 29(2):000–000.
Rolland KN, Mathiassen L, Rai A (2018) Managing digital platforms
in user organizations: The interactions between digital options
and digital debt. Inform. Systems Res. 29(2):000–000.
