What Apple and Microsoft Can Teach Google and Facebook

Ane of the more powerful indicators of an ecosystem with staying power is i that creates value for more than just the company that owns it.

Opinions Maybe the best modern example of this is Apple'south iOS platform and Microsoft Windows, each of which has created a deep and intricate value concatenation for partners and customers. Both have an exhaustive list of software and services, which provide value to those investing in the platform.

My son Ben, who oversees consumer research for Creative Strategies, recently participated in an exercise with some folks at Harvard Business School and the Clayton Christensen Institute, looking at means value creation can play in solving the Innovators Dilemma and keeping disruption at bay.

They looked specifically at Apple tree and argued that the latitude and depth of the value creation for parties other than Apple is larger than other platforms. An example of this would exist iPhone accessories. While it'southward true there is an accompaniment industry for Android phones, Android's more open platform approach leads to a massive amount of hardware diversity. For accessories like cases this is a problem since one manufacturer can't make a case for every Android phone. Instead, they pick the ones they experience are the best selling or the ones most likely to take more valuable customers, like Samsung Galaxy S or Note phones, for example.

The iPhone is a much easier production to design accessories like cases for because there are far fewer designs to worry about. Not surprisingly, this dynamic allows for an accompaniment business to thrive focusing solely on Apple products.

Ben and his team were difficult-pressed to find many companies focused solely on Android. Everyone supporting Android with their hardware, software, or services is likewise supporting iOS or Windows as well. Android stands out as information technology is the platform with the most global users, but it has the shallowest value creation web for anyone except Google.

The more we thought about this after this working session, the more it made sense that Google is a bit of an anomaly when compared to the other platforms that were explored. Google has a unlike business organization model. The biggest segment it creates value for besides itself is advertisers. This differs significantly when compared to Apple tree and Microsoft, which accept an terminate-user in listen rather than advertisers.

Information technology seems Facebook may also endure from this paradox. Google and Facebook provide a gratis service to customers and evolve their offer appropriately, yet the needs of the end user are not their primary concern; advertisers bring in the cash.

Which begs the question: can a platform serve ii customer segments at opposite ends of the spectrum? Is the reason Microsoft and Apple tree have such deep webs of value creation for their ecosystem considering they are laser-focused on the cease client needs? Volition companies like Facebook and Google struggle to build large ecosystems of value creation beyond themselves and their true customers, advertisers?

Ultimately, will complimentary platforms, which over-alphabetize on creating value for advertisers due to the necessity of their business organisation model, then be more susceptible to disruption under this new thesis? We don't have answers correct now since this new wrinkle with Google and Facebook are then new. Just we do know from all available research that companies with a more end-user approach to their platforms are the ones that accept succeeded at creating breadth in depth of value for not merely themselves but thousands of partners likewise.

Google and Facebook provide a valuable service to end users. Simply are the companies all-time positioned here the ones with platforms light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation-focused on the consumer or the ones with advertisers as their key customers? Information technology's no doubt a key philosophical question worth fleshing out if any of us are to place bets.

About Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin

Tim Bajarin is recognized every bit ane of the leading manufacture consultants, analysts, and futurists covering the field of personal computers and consumer technology. Mr. Bajarin has been with Creative Strategies since 1981 and has provided research to about of the leading hardware and software vendors in the industry including IBM, Apple, Xerox, Compaq, Dell, AT&T, Microsoft, Polaroid, Lotus, Epson, Toshiba, and numerous others. Mr. Bajarin is known as a concise, futuristic analyst, credited with predicting the desktop publishing revolution iii years earlier it hit the marketplace, and identifying multimedia as a major trend in written reports as early as 1984. He has authored major manufacture studies on PC, portable computing, …