Platform Compatibility and Developer Multihoming: A Trade-off Perspective
Authors: Tian, Jing; Zhao, Xia; Xue, Ling
Journal: MIS Quarterly (2022)
<jats:p>Digital platform ecosystems feature interplatform competition. A potential strategy for a platform with market disadvantage is to make itself compatible with competitors to attract multihoming of developers. However, many questions remain unresolved regarding how a platform’s compatibility strategy impacts developers’ multihoming decisions and subsequent app performance. In this study, we use the context of web browser platforms (i.e., Firefox and Chrome) to investigate how the increase in the technological compatibility of a secondary platform (Firefox) influences developer multihoming from a primary dominant platform (Chrome). We theoretically consider how increased platform compatibility influences the trade-offs in developers’ multihoming decisions and their subsequent app development choices. Based on this trade-off perspective, we posit and empirically investigate the effects of increased platform compatibility on developer multihoming, and the subsequent development choices and app performance resulting from multihoming. Our findings illustrate that developers with larger user bases on the primary platform are more willing to multihome than those with smaller bases,…