Analyzing Multi-Sided Platforms: Exploring Commercial Success in the Mobile OS Industry

Abstract

With this thesis, we want to investigate a potential relationship between mobile operating system (OS) openness and commercial success. First, we provide some background literature on business platforms and the sub-class of multi-sided digital platforms, conducting a review of different theoretical studies and emphasizing the most successful strategies for their launch phase. Then, we analyse the concepts and strategic implications of both platform openness and open-source software. Subsequently, we delve into the realm of mobile OS, offering an overview of the competitive landscape and illustrating the smartphone revolution ignited by the launch of iOS and Android. Later, we present our collected data regarding mobile OS openness (measured towards device vendors, app developers and OS governance) and the relative OS market shares (which serve as our measure for commercial success), over a timespan from 2007 to 2020. Consequently, we attempt to identify a possible trend towards mobile OS openness and potential correlations with commercial success, utilising the implementation of graphs. We conclude the thesis by outlining our findings and confronting them with the theory studied in the initial chapters.