The Apple Ecosystem and the Concept of Lock-in

April 7, 2014

A recent article on cnet discusses Steve Job’s intention to lock-in customers into the Apple Ecosystem.

Steve Jobs

Based on Richard Normann’s work described in his book “Reframing Business“, I have been thinking about the emerging importance of innovating ecosystems of value, reconceiving offerings and value-creation as dynamic processes within living systems.

Ecosystems have many interacting actors that play diverse and complementary roles. Some, such as Apple, play a critical role, that of a keystone, or a Prime Mover, according to the language that Normann uses.

The Prime Mover, orchestrates the system of value, but is not alone in the process of value creation. As much as there are partners, various other stakeholders, including customers as individuals and social groups, participate in this dynamic.

If one looks at the Apple Ecosystem (see image below), this becomes very apparent, that Apple is not the lone player or entity

Apple Ecosystem

(Image courtesy: Judith Vargas)

Here is another image from Time Magazine

Apple Ecosystem

It is clear to me that Apple chose to be a Prime Mover, and had the knowledge and power to shape the ecosystem. The Apple platform is simultaneously an infrastructure, implying a system of proprietary standards, but also a conceptual platform, around which many participants including the users can create value according to their own needs. In the latter sense, it is a Design System, an active offering, that provides a ‘genetic’ code for others to leverage.

Apple’s excellence, among other things, stems from having successfully executed on both levels. It owns the conceptual architecture of this innovating ecosystem, as much as IKEA owns the conceptual architecture of its home design ecosystem.

The alternative is of course an open platform, and there are those, however, so far none have been successful in the same way. Perhaps, there will be another innovating ecosystem in the near future that is based on an open platform. Open systems are very powerful and in the democratized future (Josephine Green of Philips), we will see more of those.

But, whatever be that ecosystem, participating in them is a form of committment – an acceptance of “lock-in”. That is the sense in which Steve Jobs was possibly using the word. In itself that is not a bad thing.