IEEE ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT REVIEW
Book Reviews: Volume 31, Number 1, First Quarter 2003
Platform Leadership: How Intel, Microsoft, and Cisco
Drive Industry Innovation
by Annabelle
Gawer and Michael A. Cusumano
Harvard
Business School Press, 2002
ISBN
1-57851-514-9
Breadth of Audience: 2.50
(Fair)
Topical Utility: 3.33 (Good)
Content Applicable: 3.25 (Good)
Writing Quality: 3.44 (Good)
Overall: 3.13 (Good)
COMMENTS FROM THE REVIEWERS:
1. A very good attempt to summarize the important issues
in IT platform leadership—a very broad and strategic subject. It is clear that the book is a result of
many detailed researches on the evolution of those platform leaders,
particularly Intel. The four levers framework was well set and has been
consistently used throughout the various case studies. The book is also
technologically just right and up-to-date.
The only minor comments: First, a stronger financial perspective to the case studies would help to complete the scope of the book—how platform leadership affects the various decisions made during the evolution, what it means from financial angles, how it affects share price, etc.
Second, for a book of 300 pages, there are only ten tables
and lists (in Chapters 3, 5, and 6) describing the facts and figures of the
companies discussed. It would also help to have more figures (such as
Mind-Maps, etc.) to explain various conceptual and strategy issues involved in
achieving platform leadership.
2. This is
another beautiful book that Michael Cusumano gives to us, this time working
together with Annabelle Gawer. Scholars make an in-depth analysis of what is happening
in some high tech industries to find variables that explain the success of firms
that are platform leaders. In simple words, a high-tech platform is an evolving
system made of interdependent pieces that can be innovated upon. From a long,
rich on-site research at INTEL, the authors are able to identify four levers
that allowed the firm to achieve platform leadership: scope of the firm,
product technology, relationships with external complementors, and internal
organizational structures.
Firms that are
successful platform leaders can exert a strong influence in orchestrating
innovation not only inside their own industries, but also in the industries of
firms that produce and use complementary products. Not all industries offer the
possibility to implement platform leadership strategies to the firms. What
should occur is that a product has a limited value if used alone, but it
becomes more valuable if used together with complementary products.
Academics,
students, executives, professional consultants, and entrepreneurs in high-tech
arenas would benefit from this book. This work sheds light on how competition
is evolving in many high-tech arenas and gives insights about how firms can
drive technological and business innovation, shaping their business environment
in interconnected industries. Platform leadership and complementary innovation
are not things that happen spontaneously in an industry, according to the
authors, but managers make them happen, if they know what to do and how to do
it.
ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT REVIEW
A publication of the IEEE Engineering Management Society