As in any industry, firms in platform industries choose competitive strategies to achieve competitive advantage. We use a dynamic model to characterize types of competitive (dis-) advantage and demonstrate that in platform industries, any market structure can be mapped into these types of competitive advantage. We simulate the model to find the optimal competitive strategy for each type of competitive advantage. Mapping these results back into market structure, we derive guidelines for determining a firm's optimal competitive strategy conditional on the firm's competitive position within the market, namely its competitive position within its platform and the position of its platform within the industry. We apply those guidelines to discuss the micro-computer market.
