Platform definitions

There are many definitions of platforms, which can be divided into two groups: Those that view platform as technology, and those that view platforms as businesses. A second distinction, which we elaborate on in the book, is that between platforms as shared functionality and platforms as providing connectivity.

  Platform as digital technology Platform as a digital business
Utility  Tiwana (2006): An extensible codebase with core functionality shared by apps.  
Connection  Srnicek (2017): A digital infrastructure that enables to or more groups to interact.  Rogers (2016), Parker et al. (2016), Reillier & Reillier (2017), Evans & Schmalensee (2016): a business that creates value by facilitating direct interactions between two or more distinct types of customers.

(Tiwana, 2014)  defines a platform as the extensible codebase of a software-based system that provides core functionality shared by apps that interoperate with it, and the interfaces through which they interoperate. An example is Ap

ple’s iOS, on top of which apps are developed by third parties. (Srnicek, 2017) defines a platform as a digital infrastructure that enables to or more groups to interact. The Facebook and Uber apps are examples.

(Rogers, 2016) sees a platform as a business, not as technology, but otherwise has the same view. A platform according to Rogers is a business that creates value by facilitating direct interactions between two or more distinct types of customers. (Parker, et al., 2016) and (Reillier & Reillier, 2017) give similar definitions. (Evans & Schmalensee, 2016) call these matchmaking platforms.

(Moazed & Johnson, 2016) have an interesting variation of this view. They define a platform as a business model, not a business. A platform is a business model that facilitates the exchange of value between two or more user groups, a consumer and a producer. This would turn all e3value models into platforms. We do not think this is a helpful view.

(McAfee & Brynjolfsson, 2017) view platforms as software, not as a business, and define it from an economic point of view as a digital environment characterized by near-zero marginal cost of access, reproduction, and distribution. This covers shared core functionality as well as connectivity, the entire left-hand column of the above table. Online marketplaces are platforms in this sense, shopping malls are not.

(Cusumano, et al., 2019) are agnostic about what kind of entity platforms are –business or software– but state what platforms do: Platforms provide shared resources or connect individuals and organizations. This covers the entire table above. Credit cards and political parties are both examples of platforms according to this definition.

Our definition stays firmly in the left-hand column: platforms are technology. And it covers the entire column, as explained in Section 3.4. Platforms provide common utility functions or provide connectivity to their users.