Notice

Just a reminder, these posts are not legal advice. This site is the personal blog of Mark Radcliffe and the opinions expressed are those of Mark Radcliffe and not those of his clients, DLA Piper or the clients of DLA Piper.

About Me:

Mark Radcliffe

I have been practicing law in Silicon Valley for over thirty years assisting startups and global companies develop and market innovative products and services. I have participated in multiple business cyles in Silicon Valley from hardware to software to internet to cloud. My projects have included developing the dual licensing business model for open source startup, developing the original domain dispute resolution policy for NSI and assisting Sun in open sourcing the Solaris operating system. Recently, I served on the US Japan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Council (one of ten members) to develop a plan to encourage the innovation in Japan and the United States. I have been working with the same attorneys since 1986 although we have merged with other law firms several times. I am now a partner at DLA Piper, a (relatively) new global law firm formed in 2005 from the merger of three law firms. The firm now has 4200 lawyers in 31 countries and 77 cities. My experience in corporate securities (particularly venture capital) and intellectual property enables me to assist companies structure the financing and intellectual property strategy for developing ane exploiting a new product or service. I and my team work with fifty startups at one time as well as Global Fortune 100. I have been fortunate enough to work with companies in software, cloud computing, semiconductor, health care IT and Web 2.0.

Competing with Open Source: Strategies by Harvard and Stanford

05/10/08

You know that open source has arrived as a business strategy when Harvard and Stanford professors write papers about how to compete with the open source model (although the article covers all free goods).

In their words:

It’s not easy, and it’s more than just a theoretical question. U.S. newspapers are finding it difficult to compete with free news and the commentary of bloggers and other internet sources. And in the software world, the rise of open source products, which are available for free on the internet, is reshaping the technology industry.

“Divide and Conquer: Competing with Free Technology Under Network Effects,” Deishin Lee and Haim Mendelson, Production and Operations Management, January-February, 2008 http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/mendelson_div_conq.html

They mention three strategies for commercial companies to compete with “free” products:

1. Timing

2. Product features

3. Network effects across other markets.

Thanks to Matt Asay on finding this article and his insightful commentary. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10047872-16.html

Post tags:

1 Comment

  1. [...] The question of how Microsoft will respond to competition with  open source software is beginning to be answered. I have already discussed the views of Stanford and Harvard Business School professors in an earlier post http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.com/blog/?p=74.   [...]

    Pingback by Law & Life: Silicon Valley » Microsoft’s Operating System Strategy and Open Source — October 19, 2008 @ 8:37 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.