| Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries | 
 enlarge | Authors: David S. Evans, Andrei Hagiu, Richard Schmalensee
Publisher: The MIT Press
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $10.70
You Save: $7.25 (40%)
New (13) Used (5) from $8.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 425167
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 408
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0262550687
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780262550680
ASIN: 0262550687
Publication Date: April 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Winner of the Business, Management & Accounting category in the 2006 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Awards Competition presented by the Association of American Publishers, Inc.
Software platforms are the invisible engines that have created, touched, or transformed nearly every major industry for the past quarter century. They power everything from mobile phones and automobile navigation systems to search engines and web portals. They have been the source of enormous value to consumers and helped some entrepreneurs build great fortunes. And they are likely to drive change that will dwarf the business and technology revolution we have seen to this point. Invisible Engines examines the business dynamics and strategies used by firms that recognize the transformative power unleashed by this new revolution?a revolution that will change both new and old industries.
The authors argue that in order to understand the successes of software platforms, we must first understand their role as a technological meeting ground where application developers and end users converge. Apple, Microsoft, and Google, for example, charge developers little or nothing for using their platforms and make most of their money from end users; Sony PlayStation and other game consoles, by contrast, subsidize users and make more money from developers, who pay royalties for access to the code they need to write games. More applications attract more users, and more users attract more applications. And more applications and more users lead to more profits.
Invisible Engines explores this story through the lens of the companies that have mastered this platform-balancing act. It offers detailed studies of the personal computer, video game console, personal digital assistant, smart mobile phone, and digital media software platform industries, focusing on the business decisions made by industry players to drive profits and stay a step ahead of the competition. Shorter discussions of Internet-based software platforms provide an important glimpse into a future in which the way we buy, pay, watch, listen, learn, and communicate will change forever. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 This book sucks May 1, 2008
I don't know if I'm missing what the other reviewers saw in this book. I hope they are not people who the authors know.
This book plain sucks. Blogs are better structured than this one. Each page totally lacks focus. The authors jump from point to point without any continuity.
Most of the concepts presented add no value. This book ended up being a mangled mess between economics and history of computers. You'd be better off reading wikipedia on these topics.
Why did I give a 2 instead of a 1? Some concepts like the multisides make sense.
 The concept is groundbreaking and goes beyond understanding of the software industry June 24, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
While "Invisible Engines" provides readers with a good "lens" to understand what is driving competition in the software industry, the beauty of this book is that it is based on a new concept in economics, two-sided (multi-sided) platforms, which may be applied to many other industries. So far, economics reearch focused mostly on the single market model, but in the real world, there are many situations where two markets converge or two-sided platform is at work. The simplest example is singles clubs, which are mentioned in this book. The clubs need men and women and in the right proportions to even have a product.
In summary, this book is a good introduction to the new frontier of ecnomics research, multi-sided platforms.
 Good survey and interesting analysis February 15, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Helpful overview of software platforms history/status. Insightful information on economics driving the technical and marketing decisions.
A very interesting and entertaining read December 25, 2006
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Not necessarily for weekend travels, but a very interesting and entertaining read nevertheless, on what may a priori seem like a pretty dull subject - software platforms. Well, little did I know, there is quite a lot of action (competition, innovation, "imperialism"?!?) going on in those industries. I would highly recommend it to any slightly economically-curious business person or even for someone who is just interested in investing in IT markets - great overview.
Tour de force December 14, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Ever wondered what iPods, Windows, Xboxes, PDAs and smartphones have in common? This book provides a useful analysis of the successful business practices that cut across all of these industries and have made their pioneers extremely rich and famous. I found it very insightful and surprisingly well-written - there are lots of well-chosen anecdotes which help the reader cope with the complexity of the subject.
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