Invisible Engines: How Software Platforms Drive Innovation and Transform Industries(Paperback)

David S. Evans, Andrei Hagiu, Richard Schmalensee

相關主題

商品描述

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.

商品描述(中文翻譯)

在2006年由美國出版商協會舉辦的專業/學術出版年度獎中,本書榮獲商業、管理和會計類別的獲獎者。

軟體平台是近25年來創造、觸及或改變幾乎所有主要行業的隱形引擎。它們驅動著從手機和汽車導航系統到搜索引擎和網絡門戶的一切。它們為消費者創造了巨大價值,幫助一些企業家積累了巨大財富。它們很可能引發的變革將遠遠超過我們迄今所見的商業和技術革命。《隱形引擎》探討了認識到這場新革命所釋放的變革力量的企業所使用的商業動態和策略,這場革命將改變新舊行業。

作者們認為,為了理解軟體平台的成功,我們必須首先理解它們作為技術交匯處的角色,應用開發人員和最終用戶在這裡匯聚。例如,蘋果、微軟和谷歌幾乎不向開發人員收取使用其平台的費用,而是從最終用戶獲得大部分收入;相比之下,索尼PlayStation和其他遊戲主機則補貼用戶,從開發人員那裡獲得更多收入,開發人員支付版稅以獲得編寫遊戲所需的代碼。更多的應用吸引更多的用戶,而更多的用戶吸引更多的應用。而更多的應用和用戶導致更多的利潤。

《隱形引擎》通過探索掌握這種平台平衡行為的公司來講述這個故事。它詳細研究了個人電腦、視頻遊戲主機、個人數字助理、智能手機和數字媒體軟體平台行業的商業決策,重點關注業界參與者為了獲利和保持領先地位所做的決策。對基於互聯網的軟體平台的簡短討論提供了一個重要的預覽,揭示了一個未來,我們在其中購買、支付、觀看、聽取、學習和溝通的方式將永遠改變。本書的電子版本可在創用CC授權下獲得。