A4 Refereed article in a conference publication
Fool’s gold? Developer dilemmas in a closed mobile application market platform
Authors: Joni Salminen, Jose Teixeira
Editors: Jonna Järveläinen, Hongxiu Li, Anne-Marie Tuikka, Tiina Kuusela
Conference name: International Conference on Electronic Commerce
Publication year: 2013
Journal: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
Book title : Co-created Effective, Agile, and Trusted eServices: 15th International Conference on Electronic Commerce, ICEC 2013, Turku, Finland, August 13-15, 2013. Proceedings
Series title: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
Volume: 155
First page : 121
Last page: 132
Number of pages: 12
ISBN: 978-3-642-39807-0
eISBN: 978-3-642-39808-7
ISSN: 1865-1348
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39808-7_11
Web address : http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39808-7_11
In this paper, we outline some potential conflicts that platform owners and software developers face in mobile application markets. Our arguments are based on comments captured in specialized online discussion forums, in which developers gather to share knowledge and experiences. The key findings indicate conflicts of interests, including 1) intra-platform competition, 2) discriminative promotion, 3) entry prevention, 4) restricted monetization, 5) restricted knowledge sharing, 6) substitution, and 7) strategic technology selection. Opportunistic platform owners may use their power to discriminate between third-part software developers. However, there are also potential strategic solutions that developers can apply; for example diversification (multi-homing), syndication and brand building.