INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY IN
BUSINESS AND
SOCIETY
SESSION 6 – HOW COMPUTERS AND THE WEB WORK
SEAN J. TAYLOR
ADMINISTRATIVIA
• Facebook Experiment: See Beibei Li in 8186 after class (3pm-5pm) to receive
payment
• Varun’s office hours on Monday: 2-4pm in
8th floor tutoring area
• Assignment 1
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Understand how platforms emerge due to
network effects.
2. Think strategically about how firms use
platforms for competitive advantage.
3. Explain how standards emerge and how
standards are different from platforms.
PLATFORM OR PRODUCT?
• part of a technical system whose components
come from different companies or organizations
• relatively little value without complementary
products or services
WHY BUILD A PLATFORM?
• Firm is unlikely to be able to provide all useful
services or applications ahead of time
• Brings more value to users by creating room for
configuration, expansion (product fit, value)
• Lock-in for platform users who make costly
investments to use them
• Platforms are useful abstractions, even for
internal use
PLATFORMS ARE INEVITABLE
DIRECT NETWORK EFFECTS
INDIRECT NETWORK EFFECTS
PLATFORM BATTLES
MUTUALLY INCOMPATIBLE
COEXISTENCE
(DIFFERENTIATION)
MULTIPLE “MARKET SIDES” TO
A PLATFORM
PLATFORM STRATEGY
NETSCAPE
INTERNET EXPLORER
STANDARDS:
SOLVE COORDINATION PROBLEMS
• governments
• corporations
• consortia
• professional associations
• standards-organizations (ISO)
• volunteers or developers
• de facto standards
STANDARDS: HELPING
COMPUTERS EXCHANGE INFO
STANDARDS AS LANGUAGES
STANDARDS AS INTERFACES
STANDARDS AND
IMPLEMENTATIONS
Implementations and specifications have to do a
delicate dance together. You don’t want
implementations to happen before the specification
is finished, because people start depending on the
details of implementations and that constrains the
specification. However, you also don’t want the
specification to be finished before there are
implementations and author experience with those
implementations, because you need the feedback.
There is unavoidable tension here, but we just
have to muddle on through.
TECHNICALLY,
WHAT IS A PLATFORM?
•
A Hardware and/or Software system with an interface for
applications
•
Typically, a platform has an API--Applications Programming
Interface: an interface (i.e., a set of standardized commands)
that the underlying “platform” can execute
Software creators use the API when writing programs
•
Customized “programs” (e.g., Excel Macros)
Application Programming Interface
Application Software (e.g., Office)
Application
platform
Application Programming Interface
Operating System
Application Programming Interface
Processor (Hardware)
O/S
platform
Hardware
platform
APPLICATION PROGRAMMING
INTERFACE
PLATFORM EXAMPLES
Hardware+OS platforms
•
‘Wintel’ (Microsoft Windows + Intel/AMD)
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•
•
Apple (Mac OS X + Intel, used to be IBM PowerPC)
Sun (Solaris + SPARC, also moving to Intel)
Linux (Linux + Intel/AMD)
Windows Mobile (Microsoft OS + Cell Phones)
X-Box, PlayStation, GameCube…
•
The Web is also a platform
Amazon’s Web services
•
Powerful retailing platform that lets other retailers use the
capabilities of Amazon’s retailing site
Google’s many platforms
•
•
Web search, desktop search
Maps
•
Others?
PLATFORMS ARE AN EXAMPLE
OF LAYERING
•
•
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Think of each “layer” as software or hardware that can
perform certain tasks
Higher layers can use the capabilities of lower layers
Each layer specifies an interface that defines how a higher
layer can “call” these capabilities
Layering underlies the progress in Information Technology
by breaking difficult problems into smaller ones and
allowing improvements in individual areas without
worrying about implications for the rest of the system
Software layers can be improved, or replaced by hardware
layers
Hardware layers can be improved, or replaced by software
layers
LAYERS
THE CLOUD!
THE ULTIMATE PLATFORM
“THE AGE OF THE PLATFORM”
BY PHIL SIMON
NEXT CLASS:
COMPUTERS AND THE WEB I
• Read about Moore’s Law
• How Computers Work video
• How the Internet Works
video