Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,746)
- Faculty Publications (567)
- February 2011 (Revised November 2012)
- Case
PatientsLikeMe: An Online Community of Patients
By: Sunil Gupta and Jason Riis
PatientsLikeMe (PLM) is an online community where patients share their personal experiences with a disease, find other patients like them, and learn from each other. The company was founded by Jamie and Ben Heywood when their 29-year-old brother was diagnosed with ALS... View Details
- February 2011
- Case
oDesk: Changing How the World Works
By: Boris Groysberg, David A. Thomas and Jennifer M. Tydlaska
It is 2010, and Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk, is contemplating the next steps for his organization. Founded in 2004 in California, oDesk operates an online marketplace which matches Employers with Contractors. oDesk provides fact-based information on Contractors, including... View Details
- October 2010
- Case
The iPhone at IVK
By: Richard L. Nolan and Robert D. Austin
The CIO addresses a decision to replace salesmen netbook PC's with iPhones, including converting the company's sales and customer applications to the iPhone platform View Details
- 2010
- Working Paper
The Job Market for New Economists: A Market Design Perspective
By: Peter A. Coles, John Cawley, Phillip B. Levine, Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth and John J. Siegfried
This paper provides an overview of the market for new Ph.D. economists. It describes the role of the American Economic Association (AEA) in the market and focuses in particular on two mechanisms adopted in recent years at the suggestion of our committee. First, job... View Details
- March 2010 (Revised April 2014)
- Case
American Well: The Doctor Will E-See You Now
By: Elie Ofek and Ron Laufer
What is next for healthcare IT provider American Well, whose innovative Online Care technology allows physicians to deliver care to patients online in real time? Using American Well's platform, patients with non-emergency health concerns can communicate with physicians... View Details
- March 2010 (Revised May 2012)
- Case
Bank of America: Mobile Banking
By: Sunil Gupta and Kerry Herman
In January 2010, Jen McDonald, head of Bank of America Corporation's (BAC) Digital Marketing group, was discussing the bank's mobile strategy with Douglas Brown, senior vice president, Mobile Product Development. BAC launched mobile banking in 2007 and within three... View Details
- February 2010
- Supplement
Lending Club case exhibits (CW)
By: Peter Tufano
A new entrant in the nascent online peer lending space, Lending Club must decide whether or not to register with the SEC. Lending Club provided a platform through which individual borrowers could receive loans funded by individuals who chose to invest in them. The... View Details
- January 2010 (Revised May 2012)
- Case
TopCoder (A): Developing Software through Crowdsourcing
By: Karim R. Lakhani, David A. Garvin and Eric Lonstein
TopCoder's crowdsourcing-based business model, in which software is developed through online tournaments, is presented. The case highlights how TopCoder has created a unique two-sided innovation platform consisting of a global community of over 225,000 developers who... View Details
- 2009
- Chapter
Opening Platforms: When, How and Why?
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Geoffrey Parker and Marshall Van Alstyne
Platform-mediated networks encompass several distinct types of participants, including end users, complementors, platform providers who facilitate users' access to complements, and sponsors who develop platform technologies. Each of these roles can be opened-that... View Details
- November 2009 (Revised August 2010)
- Case
NovoCure Ltd.
By: William A. Sahlman and Sarah Flaherty
Venture capitalist William Doyle must raise $35 million for a portfolio company with a promising, novel cancer therapy, just as global capital markets are imploding in the fall of 2008. NovoCure, Ltd., has developed an electrical-field-based therapy, called Tumor... View Details
- October 2009 (Revised July 2012)
- Case
Emotiv Systems Inc.: It's the Thoughts that Count
By: Elie Ofek, Jason Riis and Paul Hamilton
Emotiv is getting ready to launch its innovative brain-computer interfacing (BCI) technology. The company has developed a special headset, called EPOC, and highly sophisticated software that can translate a person's emotions, cognitive thoughts, and facial expressions... View Details
- July 2009 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Sotheby's & Christie's Inc.
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Catherine Jane Wise
The fine art auction business has remained a duopoly over its 250 year history. The industry is dominated by Sotheby's and Christie's Inc. Curiously, neither competitor has been able to overtake the other by a notable margin despite the clear network effects of this... View Details
- 2009
- Working Paper
Principles that Matter: Sustaining Software Innovation from the Client to the Web
By: Marco Iansiti
Economic analysis often reviews the role of principles—such as respect for intellectual property rights—in driving innovation. Given the interdependent nature of innovation in information technology, three core principles have emerged that work together to ensure that... View Details
- April 2009 (Revised August 2009)
- Case
Linden Lab: Crossing the Chasm
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Alison Berkley Wagonfeld
In early 2008, managers at Linden Lab, creator of the virtual world Second Life, faced decisions about the company's growth strategy. Despite profound initial skepticism about demand for a user-generated virtual world that was not a traditional game, Second Life had... View Details
- September 2008 (Revised August 2009)
- Case
VMware, Inc., 2008
By: David B. Yoffie, Andrei Hagiu and Michael Slind
Paul Maritz took the helm of VMware in July 2008, just as the company confronted a radically new competitive environment. Since its founding in 1998, VMware had been the leading provider of virtualization software. Now it faced the kind of threat that every software... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
Opening Platforms: How, When and Why?
By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Geoffrey Parker and Marshall Van Alstyne
Platform-mediated networks encompass several distinct types of participants, including end users, complementors, platform providers who facilitate users' access to complements, and sponsors who develop platform technologies. Each of these roles can be opened-that... View Details
- 2008
- Working Paper
The Architecture of Platforms: A Unified View
By: Carliss Y. Baldwin and C. Jason Woodard
The central role of "platform" products and services in mediating the activities of disaggregated "clusters" or "ecosystems" of firms has been widely recognized. But platforms and the systems in which they are embedded are very diverse. In particular, platforms may... View Details
- Article
Managing Proprietary and Shared Platforms
In a platform-mediated network, users rely on a common platform, provided by one or more intermediaries, that encompasses infrastructure and rules required by users to transact with each other. A fundamental design decision for firms that aspire to develop... View Details
- May 2008 (Revised March 2010)
- Case
Palm (A): The Debate on Licensing Palm's OS (1997)
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Kevin Boudreau and Jordan Mitchell
This case series looks at three important inflection points in Palm's history that relate to decisions about its platform: when the company was debating whether to open its operating system (OS) for licensing to third-party hardware manufacturers; 2001, when the... View Details
- May 2008 (Revised March 2010)
- Supplement
Palm (B): 2001
By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Kevin Boudreau and Jordan Mitchell
This case series looks at three important inflection points in Palm's history that relate to decisions about its platform: when the company was debating whether to open its operating system (OS) for licensing to third-party hardware manufacturers; 2001, when the... View Details