A strategic method to establish sustainable platform businesses for next-generation home-network environments

摘要

The situation of the consumer electronics industry has become severe due to the rapid growth of digital hardware technology, and sophisticated open source technology. Every product of this industry has become commoditized very rapidly due to the emergence of those technologies, and many firms have been suffering from very thin profitability. Under such severe circumstances, the firms in the high-tech industry that enjoy overwhelming market share, profitability, and sustainability are the firms doing "Platform business," such as Intel and Microsoft, rather than those doing low margin "product selling business." Looking at the great sustainability of those firms, many high-tech firms have aimed to be successful Platform leaders, but to do so is not easy. In this paper, I define key success factors for consumer electronics firms to be able to be profitable and sustainable Platform Leaders, especially focusing on the "home-network platform business" where many high-tech firms have tried to be a dominant design holder.