For apps to be featured on the iPhone, developers must build it with Apple\'s so

Question

For apps to be featured on the iPhone, developers must build it with Apple's software development kit and then apply fo approval. Apple rejected the Google Voice IPhone App, and further stated that it would not accept any applications that incorporated Google Voice functionally. Apple reasoned that this app duplicates the phone's core features. It also rejected Google's location-based app Google Latitude.

If you were developing a collaborati e platform, do you think the best model is this collaborative model, or is the open innovation model better-if your main goal is to maximize innovation? What if your main goal is making money?

Explanation / Answer

>In an era when great ideas can sprout from any corner of the world and IT has dramatically reduced the cost of accessing them, it’s now conventional wisdom that virtually no company should innovate on its own. The good news is that potential partners and ways to collaborate with them have both expanded enormously in number. The bad news is that greater choice has made the perennial management challenge of selecting the best options much more difficult. The fervor around open models of collaboration such as crowdsourcing notwithstanding, there is no best approach to leveraging the power of outsiders. Different modes of collaboration involve different strategic trade-offs. Companies that choose the wrong mode risk falling behind in the relentless race to develop new technologies, designs, products, and services.

>Collaboration networks differ significantly in the degree to which membership is open to anyone who wants to join. In totally open collaboration, or crowdsourcing, everyone (suppliers, customers, designers, research institutions, inventors, students, hobbyists, and even competitors) can participate. A sponsor makes a problem public and then essentially seeks support from an unlimited number of problem solvers, who may contribute if they believe they have capabilities and assets to offer. Open-source software projects such as Linux, Apache, and Mozilla are examples of these networks. Closed networks, in contrast, are like private clubs. Here, you tackle the problem with one or more parties that you select because you deem them to have capabilities and assets crucial to the sought-after innovation.

>>“The 3 Ways to Collaborate” shows, there are four basic modes of collaboration:

1)OPEN OR CLOSED NETWORK:

>The costs of searching for, screening, and selecting contributors grow as the network becomes larger and can become prohibitive. So understanding when you need a small or a large number of problem solvers is crucial. Closed modes, obviously, tend to be much smaller than open ones.

>When you use a closed mode, you are making two implicit bets: that you have identified the knowledge domain from which the best solution to your problem will come, and that you can pick the right collaborators in that field.

"Open collaboration works best when the consequencesof missing out on a much better solution from an elite player are small"

2)A MATTER OF STARTEGY:

>Consider the approach that Apple used in developing software for the iPhone and how it changed over time. A key part of Apple’s business strategy (across all its products) has been to maintain the integrity of its systems. Indeed, one of the joys (and thus differentiators) of an Apple product is that everything—the machine’s hardware, software, and peripherals—seems to work together so seamlessly. Historically, this kept Apple more oriented toward closed modes, where it could better control the components that influenced the user’s experience. The company took that approach in developing the first generations of the iPhone as well and relied on elite circles to develop early applications for it.

>However, once the iPhone was established, Apple faced the challenge of adding software functionality and applications that would fuel more growth.

>The rollout of mobile phones using Android, Google’s operating system, could prompt Apple to adopt a two-part collaboration strategy. Since Android is open-source software, it may attract an even larger community of developers than the iPhone. So Apple might decide to supplement the applications developed by third parties with proprietary hardware features conceived by its own staff and created with the help of elite circles of hardware manufacturers. That illustrates another important point: Companies can use a combination of collaboration modes simultaneously to support their strategies.

3)NEW SOURCE OF ADVANTAGE:

As with any strategic variable, collaborative approaches to innovation offer an array of choices and complex trade-offs. As the examples in this article suggest, each approach can be highly effective under the right conditions. Senior managers need to be wary of the notion that one type of collaboration is superior to others. Open is not always better than closed, and flat is not always better than hierarchical.Companies must also ask what unique capabilities they bring to the collaborative process. Firms with deep relationships in a space

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