I'd venture that the author has a firm grasp of the economics of complements. I'd also point out that thrust of the article is not about "new grand markets" [although that is certainly a potential outcome]; instead, the point is to answer the question "What shared resource have you invested in - or should you invest in - to expand the pie sustainably for everyone over the long-run?"
At any rate, what is far more interesting to me is whether or not this comment would have been posted as-is in context (i.e. on the comment thread on the original article), which the author is clearly paying attention to.
Ouch! Here's Umair's response, in case you missed it:
"max,
"if you're seeing chrome as simply a story of commoditizing complements, you're missing its lesson entirely and totally. browsers don't become commodities because of chrome: exactly the opposite happens, which is the point of the post.
"you're following the logic of last-gen platform wars: we commoditize complements because demand for our primary good rises. yet, there are also costs to commoditizing complements: what we do in the process is poison our own ecosystem. that's the story of microsoft and sony: a million applications, games, etc - with innovation totally stifled.
"see the point? "commoditizing complements" is a zero-sum equation. chrome is most definitely not.
"i strongly suggest you read the post and discussion more closely next time."
Comments
I'd venture that the author has a firm grasp of the economics of complements. I'd also point out that thrust of the article is not about "new grand markets" [although that is certainly a potential outcome]; instead, the point is to answer the question "What shared resource have you invested in - or should you invest in - to expand the pie sustainably for everyone over the long-run?"
At any rate, what is far more interesting to me is whether or not this comment would have been posted as-is in context (i.e. on the comment thread on the original article), which the author is clearly paying attention to.
Let's find out what happens - I just posted the comment to the site :-)
http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/09/where_is_the_...
Ouch! Here's Umair's response, in case you missed it:
"max,
"if you're seeing chrome as simply a story of commoditizing complements, you're missing its lesson entirely and totally. browsers don't become commodities because of chrome: exactly the opposite happens, which is the point of the post.
"you're following the logic of last-gen platform wars: we commoditize complements because demand for our primary good rises. yet, there are also costs to commoditizing complements: what we do in the process is poison our own ecosystem. that's the story of microsoft and sony: a million applications, games, etc - with innovation totally stifled.
"see the point? "commoditizing complements" is a zero-sum equation. chrome is most definitely not.
"i strongly suggest you read the post and discussion more closely next time."