Hardware Software Operated by Developer or Customer Externally Operated / as-a-Service Hardware Platform IaaS Platform Communication / Interaction Platform Data Harvesting Platform Content Crowdsourcing Platform Content Distribution Platform Platform Economy Platform “Use the platform to build and run software on top” “Use the platform to consume its service and participate in the ecosystem” Wikipedia AdSense Waze Facebook, WhatsApp AWS IaaS, Azure IaaS Intel x64 YouTube Examples Software Ecosystem Platform Eclipse, Firefox, iOS, Android Operating System Platform Runtime Environment Platform Runtime Environment Platform with Business Logic PaaS Platform PaaS Platform with Business Logic Windows AWS PaaS, Azure PaaS Salesforce PaaS Open Source ERP Systems Java, .NET, Cloud Foundry Marketplace Platform On-Demand Service Platform AirBnB, Ebay Uber Application (potentially provided as SaaS) Application (potentially provided as SaaS) Word Slack Technology Platform