A Study of Diffusion of Cloud Service with Two-sided Markets Structure and Freemium Business Model

Abstract

　This paper surveys a case study of diffusion of cloud-based accounting service in Japan. The accounting service, which adopts two-sided markets structure and freemium business model, gathers a large number of individual’s users and corporate’s users. As the results of this study, this paper clarifies three factors of its diffusion strategies. First, the accounting cloud service has been expanding its customer’s groups to grow sustainably. Second, the accounting cloud service not only build up path independence of system environment and neutrality of network path within its platform, but also cultivate path dependence of successive service innovations within its ecosystem. Third, the accounting cloud service adopts a spiral market strategy cyclically. As the results of findings, this paper extracts generalizations of diffusion of cloud service that adopts two-sided markets structure and freemium business model. The service provider, who solves these generalizations, can win its sustainable growth of new cloud services with the two-sided markets structure and freemium business model.