The impact of platform entry strategies on the quality of complements in multihoming

In this study, we collected and analyzed a dataset of 3,737 mobile applications to compare the influence of platform entry strategies on the quality of multihomed complements. Multihoming is a strategy that mobile application developers (complement providers) can use as a strategy to grow their user base and decrease their dependence on a single platform and its governance by offering their complements simultaneously on multiple platforms. This requires them to manage the developing sequence and the complexity of several sets of platform boundary resources. The resulting resource complexity can be addressed by using cross-platform boundary resources, a dedicated software development environment supporting the delivery of the same application functionality on multiple platforms. However, the risk of using cross-platform boundary resources is that quality may decrease owing to a lack of specificity when interfacing with each individual platform. The results of our research-in-progress speak to the challenge of managing complement quality in multihoming.