INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN BUSINESS AND SOCIETY SESSION 6 – HOW COMPUTERS AND THE WEB WORK SEAN J. TAYLOR

ADMINISTRATIVIA Facebook Experiment: See Beibei Li in after class (3pm-5pm) to receive payment Varun’s office hours on Monday: 2-4pm in 8 th 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 EFFECTSINDIRECT NETWORK EFFECTS

PLATFORM BATTLES MUTUALLY INCOMPATIBLE COEXISTENCE (DIFFERENTIATION)

MULTIPLE “MARKET SIDES” TO A PLATFORM

PLATFORM STRATEGY NETSCAPEINTERNET 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 Processor (Hardware) Operating System Application Programming Interface Application Software (e.g., Office) Application Programming Interface Customized “programs” (e.g., Excel Macros) Hardware platform O/S platform Application platform

APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE

PLATFORM EXAMPLES Hardware+OS platforms ‘Wintel’ (Microsoft Windows + Intel/AMD) 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 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