This paper studies an industry in which firms can choose to provide open or closed platforms. Open platforms, as … model, I show that firms might prefer to commit to keeping their platforms closed despite the fact that opening the platform … is costless and open platforms are more valuable to consumers. The reason is that opening the platform may lead to …

over to non-software platforms and, partially, to upstream and downstream firms. The model also explains why Microsoft …

platforms that allows consumers and firms to optimize with respect to how they home, i.e. we allow both individual consumers and … monopoly platform generates higher surplus than two competing homogeneous platforms. …