Orchestrate your platform: Architectural challenges for different types of ecosystems for mobile devices

Paper in proceeding, 2014

The introduction of smartphones and tablets has led to a fast growing industry in which most firms have started an ecosystem-centric approach. In this paper three types of ecosystems are identified: Vertically integrated hardware/ software platforms, closed source software platforms and open source software platforms. These ecosystems differ in the scope of the platform, i.e. covering both hardware and software, and the technology design, i.e. whether the software can be altered by the complementors. In this paper the challenges for each type of ecosystems are identified from an architectural point of view. Platform leaders can use our analysis to orchestrate their platform by proactively addressing the challenges that we identify and properly evolving the scope and technology design of their platforms.