Platform Ecosystems: Aligning Architecture, Governance, and Strategy

Platform Ecosystems is a hands-on guide that offers a complete roadmap for designing and orchestrating vibrant software platform ecosystems. Unlike software products that are managed, the evolution of ecosystems and their myriad participants must be orchestrated through a thoughtful alignment of architecture and governance.   Whether you are an IT professional or a general manager, you will benefit from this book because platform strategy here lies at the intersection of software architecture and business strategy. It offers actionable tools to develop your own platform strategy, backed by original research, tangible metrics, rich data, and cases. You will learn how architectural choices create organically-evolvable, vibrant ecosystems. You will also learn to apply state-of-the-art research in software engineering, strategy, and evolutionary biology to leverage ecosystem dynamics unique to platforms. Read this book to learn how to:

• Evolve software products and services into vibrant platform ecosystems
• Orchestrate platform architecture and governance to sustain competitive advantage
• Govern platform evolution using a powerful 3-dimensional framework

If you’re ready to transform platform strategy from newspaper gossip and business school theory to real-world competitive advantage, start right here!

• Understand how architecture and strategy are inseparably intertwined in platform ecosystems
• Architect future-proof platforms and apps and amplify these choices through governance
• Evolve platforms, apps, and entire ecosystems into vibrant successes and spot platform opportunities in almost any-not just IT-industry

Table of Contents

PART I: The Rise of Platforms
1. The Rise of Platforms
2. Core Concepts and Principles
3. Why Platform Businesses are Unlike Product or Service Businesses
4. The Value Proposition of Platforms

PART II: Architecture and Governance
5. Platform Architecture
6. Platform Governance

PART III: Dynamics and Metrics of Ecosystem Evolution
7. Metrics of Evolution
8. Real Options Thinking
9. Modular Operators

PART IV: Orchestrating Evolution
10. Evolving a Platform
11. Evolving an App

PART V: The Road Ahead
12. Why Every Product is a Platform Waiting to Happen