Abstract
A large number of applications in the marketplace has
been considered a critical factor in determining which
mobile ecosystem holds the competitive advantage and
eventually gains a dominant position in the market. This
paper investigates the influence of developer
multi-homing (i.e., participating in more than one
ecosystem) in three leading mobile application
ecosystems. Our results show that when regarded as a
whole, mobile application ecosystems are single-homing
markets. The results further show that three percent of
all developers generate more than 80 percent of installed
applications and that multi-homing is common among these
'keystone' developers. Finally, we demonstrate that the
most installed content comprises small number value
propositions. The results thus imply that attracting and
maintaining keystone developers is more critical for the
survival of a mobile application ecosystem than the
overall number of developers and applications. Hence, the
mobile application ecosystems market is unlikely to
become a monopoly. The study advances the theoretical
understanding of the influence of multi-homing on
platform competition in two-sided markets.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
| Event | Academy of Management 2015 Annual Meeting - Vancouver, Canada Duration: 7 Aug 2015 → 11 Aug 2015 |
Conference
| Conference | Academy of Management 2015 Annual Meeting |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | Canada |
| City | Vancouver |
| Period | 7/08/15 → 11/08/15 |
Keywords
- mobile application ecosystem
- multi-homing
- platform competition