Mixed Source

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon; Llanes, Gaston
• 署名单位: Harvard University; Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1110.1353
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 1212-1230
• 关键词: open source; user innovation; BUSINESS MODELS; COMPLEMENTARITY; compatibility; VALUE CREATION; VALUE CAPTURE

摘要

W e study competitive interaction between a profit-maximizing firm that sells software and complementary services, and a free open-source competitor. We examine the firm's choice of business model between the proprietary model (where all software modules are proprietary), the open-source model (where all-modules are open source), and the mixed-source model (where some-but not all-modules are open). When a module is opened, users can access and improve the code, which increases quality and value creation. Opened modules, however, are available for others to use free of charge. We derive the set of possibly optimal business models when the modules of the firm and the open-source competitor are compatible (and thus can be combined) and incompatible, and show that (i) when the firm's modules are of high (low) quality, the firm is more open under incompatibility (compatibility) than under compatibility (incompatibility); (ii) firms are more likely to open substitute, rather than complementary, modules to existing open-source projects; and (iii) there may be no trade-off between value creation and value capture when comparing business models with different degrees of openness.