Question 3: Platform Ecosystems and Cloud Computing

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, wants your advice about its nascent Apple Pay platform. What should Apple do to make the Apple Pay platform successful? How should Apple evolve the Apple Pay platform in the future?

Consider Microsoft, the well-known software company whose products are familiar to all of us. Based on the 3x3 cloud-computing grid we discussed in class, which areas of the cloud-computing grid should Microsoft focus on? What cloud computing related products and services should it offer? Briefly justify your choice(s).

Social network analysis provides various measures of the influence of a node (actor) on the network (such as degree centrality, closeness centrality and betweenness centrality). When I discussed social network analysis in class, I asked you to think about potential applications of the method. For any organization of your choice, briefly describe how it can use social network analysis. Specifically, describe the network they should analyze (what are the nodes and the edges in the network), how it can use the centrality measures, and what insights it can gain through such analysis.