I've been binging books on the topic as well as exchanging dialogs with a colleague over email. Books list:
_Completed_
The Origin of Wealth: The Radical Remaking of Economics and What it Means for Business and Society - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947864351?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_...
_To Be Completed_
Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy - https://www.amazon.com/dp/087584863X?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_...
The relevant book to read on this topic is Varian and Shapiro's Information Rules. Aimed at companies, and written in the late 1990s, its concepts are now increasingly applicable to the consumer information/IT space. In particular it discusses lock-in, or what we're now calling "fucking ecosystems".
Yeah, it's reasonably light, as I said. Training and end-user usage patterns (never something to be taken lightly) are probably your biggest issues.
Then again, the user experience with the leading alternative solution (MS Exchange) is so miserable that at one organization I'm aware of, the public announcement of a migration to Google Apps for Domains was greeted with a standing ovation.
Another interesting factoid: Hal Varian, co-author of Information Rules, which largely discusses strategic use of lock-in by both vendors and users, is Google's chief economist. I suspect this is a subject the organization understands well:
http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network-Ec...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Varian
This book has a great treatment of the underlying economics of 'information goods' if you're interested in this kind of thing and want something a bit (well, a lot) more thorough.
I've been binging books on the topic as well as exchanging dialogs with a colleague over email. Books list:
_Completed_
The Origin of Wealth: The Radical Remaking of Economics and What it Means for Business and Society - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947864351?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_...
_To Be Completed_
Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy - https://www.amazon.com/dp/087584863X?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_...
profits from a customer = quality advantage + switching costs
which puts "(marginal) goodness of your product" on equal footing with "pain you can inflict on your customer for leaving".
http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network-Ec...
Then again, the user experience with the leading alternative solution (MS Exchange) is so miserable that at one organization I'm aware of, the public announcement of a migration to Google Apps for Domains was greeted with a standing ovation.
Another interesting factoid: Hal Varian, co-author of Information Rules, which largely discusses strategic use of lock-in by both vendors and users, is Google's chief economist. I suspect this is a subject the organization understands well: http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network-Ec... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Varian
http://www.amazon.com/Information-Rules-Strategic-Network-Ec...
One of the authors is now the chief economist at Google. I highly recommend it.