Platform control during battles for market dominance: The case of Apple versus IBM in the early personal computer industry

Abstract

We conduct a case study of the battle for market dominance between the industry platforms led by Apple and by IBM in the early personal computer industry (1977–1986). Platform leaders such as Apple or IBM need to consider many technological, strategic, and network factors in managing their industry platforms. We explore how platform leaders deploy these factors and their interactions during a battle for market dominance. We find that platform leaders choose various control modes to do so, ranging from central control to distributed control. The adoption of these control modes is dependent on the choice of being first entrant with a technological discontinuity (central control) or follower (distributed control). Within a control mode, technological, strategic, and network factors are managed in a coherent way.