Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2003

Publication Title

Research Policy

Volume

32

Issue Number

7

First Page

1259

Last Page

1285

DOI

10.1016/S0048-7333(03)00052-0

Keywords

Open source, Standards competition, Computer architecture, Innovation returns

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.

Comments

Published in Research Policy, 2003. DOI: 10.1016/S0048-7333(03)00052-0 © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V.

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