Invisible Engines

I first read Invisible Engines back in 2007. I still rate it highly now, and I’m pleased to see you can download the whole book as a PDF from the MIT site. It’s topic is the economic and technical aspects of software platforms. Anyone who’s followed the fortunes of IBM, Microsoft, Apple and Sun, and their respective software and hardware platforms should get a lot from this book. I had high expectations when I originally read it, and I wasn’t disappointed. Looking at the download again today, I can see it’s stood the test of time. The book goes well beyond operating systems as platforms and has excellent material on gaming consoles and the three way tension between mobile handsets, their OSes and network operators. It came out in 2006, so pre dates the rise of social software platforms. But the principles it elucidates on multi sided markets and APIs are obviously applicable to Facebook, Google and Twitter. And in the financial sector they apply equally to industry giants like Bloomberg who are a classic multi sided play. Bloomberg as a platform derives revenue from clients paying $1000/month for a terminal. The other sides of its market are dealers contributing quotes and liquidity to Bloomberg as an ECN, and software developers using Bloomberg APIs.