A Study of Network Effects in the Platform Products’ Strategy

──How Platform Providers Take Dominant Positions in Multi-Homing Situations──

抄録

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the network effects in the platform products’ strategy. The paper starts to discuss how effective platform product providers leverage network effects to promote their platform products and how the success or failure is determined by handling the network effects. First of all, the paper looks down on the overview of the previous works regarding the network effects and recent notable researches. Then, the review points out the necessity of in-depth research about case analysis while there have been so many previous works regarding the network effects. Therefore, the paper picks up the case analysis of three examples, e.g. Facebook, Windows and Java, which indicates the strong influences in terms of switching and dominant pattern led by the leverage of the network effects. Consequently, the paper proposes new findings below, 1) Capturing the network effects of adjacent platforms, 2) Activating the network effects by the cross-platforming, and 3) Securing the open interface to gain the network effects from other adjacent platforms. The paper argues that these implications should make it easier for platform product providers to gain the share and take dominant positions.