The Art and Science of Market Platforms

An AEI-Brookings Joint Center and Financial Times Breakfast Briefing

The Garden Court Hotel
Palo Alto, California
Wednesday, April 7, 2004
7:30–10:30 am

What can PayPal learn from Comcast, the country’s leading broadband services provider?  What does PalmSource have in common with Immtech, a pharmaceutical company dedicated to conquering third-world diseases like malaria? What can Yes TV, one of the world’s leading providers of interactive TV, teach Cingular Wireless?

The Background
A large and growing part of the economy now depends on the workings of complex markets that defy conventional analysis, yet explain the spectacular successes of businesses like American Express and e-Bay, as well as the failures of a host of specialized B2B Web exchanges. The market complexity stems from the fact that, to be successful, these businesses must interact through intermediaries––or what the industry refers to as market platforms. Market platforms must compete for and attract business from all sides––buyers, sellers, product developers, and distributors––among others. Success is determined by how well these “multi-sided” market platforms are able to generate maximum value to each party to the platform and, therefore, generate maximum returns to investors in the platform-based businesses.

The Objective
Our objective is to change the way you think about success in platform-based companies. Our speakers will underscore the criticality of having a business model and strategy that allows a company to remain nimble in an environment characterized by rapidly changing technology, intricate pricing strategies, and shifting regulatory policy. Apart from introducing these core ideas, the AEI-Brookings Joint Center’s primary goal is to learn from the shared experiences of a small group of senior business executives and, thus, sharpen concepts for further research.

The Speakers and Topics 
     
Professor Jean Tirole, MIT Department of Economics, will present recent research findings on the platform-industry structure and business models. 
     
Stephen Thompson, CEO of Immtech, will offer platform-strategies to the publishing industry from his post as CEO of a unique health care platform. 
     
Thomas Kressnor, Chairman and CEO of Yes TV, will offer his views for success for telecommunications from his post as CEO of Europe’s and Asia’s largest interactive television platform. 
    
Dr. David S. Evans, economist, advisor to platform-based companies and author
of articles on the dynamics of platform-based businesses, will dispel conventional wisdom with respect to pricing strategies in these markets.