Does everyone (except Google) have a platform strategy?

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#bizarch The obvious ones – Apple, Amazon, Microsoft

General comments

“The new market disruption is the migration of a large number of
demanding customers away from phones-as-voice-products to
phones-as-computing-products. The low-end disruption is the migration of
a large number of less demanding customers from branded phones to
unbranded, commodity phones. … The new market disruption is evidenced by the shift of fortunes to Apple and Samsung and away from every other device maker.” Horace Dediu, The phone market in 2012: a tale of two disruptions (May 2012)

“Apple is the most valuable company in technology (and indeed in the
world) because it integrates hardware, software and services. It’s the
first, and only, company to do all these three well in service of jobs
that the vast majority of consumers want done.” Horace Dediu, Which is best: hardware, software or services? (May 2012)

Disney

Back in 2006, people like Hagel thought that Steve Jobs didn’t understand platforms. Maybe he didn’t then, but he certainly caught up later. 

eBay

Elsevier

Nike

Nokia

Walmart

and finally Google

Steve Yegge compares Google with Amazon: Google has a lot of things in its favour, but its platform strategy is not one of them. See my comment Google as a Platform (NOT) (Oct 2011) 

  • “Page and his management team have mandated that all Googlers focus on
    seven business areas, and that they don’t look to expand Google’s reach
    beyond these core initiatives.” Farhad Manjoo, Google’s Grand Plan (Slate, March 2012)
  • “Page’s emphasis on streamlining Google’s product line has made the
    company’s thousands of employees focused on how — and if — a tool
    adequately fulfills users’ needs.” Bianca Bosker, Google’s Future (Huffington Post, March 2012)

 That’s not a platform strategy, that’s a traditional product portfolio strategy!


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