Platform Strategy for Business

Firms such as Apple, Alibaba, Facebook, SalesForce, Uber and Yelp operate as platform ecosystems that match buyers and sellers, gain value and market share from network effects, and harness their users to innovate.

BU Digital Learning & InnovationThis course teaches you how to convert products to platforms and how to generate platform innovation. You will learn how to negotiate platform startup, convert existing businesses, and make vital decisions on issues of openness, cannibalization, and competition.

You will discover how to apply concepts from two-sided networks, information asymmetry, pricing, intellectual property, and game theory to real problems.

This course is taught by the instructor who literally wrote the book on this topic, “Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy—and How to Make Them Work for You.”

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Course Team & Partners

Marshall Van Alstyne

Course Instructor

Marshall is Professor of Information Systems and Chair of Information Systems at Boston University Questrom School of Business. He holds a B.A. in Computer Science from Yale University, a M.S. in Management and a PhD in Information Systems from MIT Sloan School. Areas of Expertise: