ABSTRACT
James Moore coined the term “business ecosystem” in 1993, in a Harvard Business Review article: “Predators and Prey: A New Ecology of Competition.” He describes a business ecosystem as a collection of related companies, sometimes in the same industry, which co-evolve capabilities around a new innovation. There has been some criticism of Moore’s business ecosystem idea, primarily that Moore says that there must be a leader – where most ecologists suggest that there is no individual “organ of control” in an ecosystem and that an ecosystem can be deliberately constructed by the leader. In a digital economy, networks and ecosystems are not only more accessible, but they are also the drivers of business. An example of a business ecosystem may make this analysis process clearer. A cell-phone manufacturer needs software to run on the phone, carriers, the internet, applications developers, content providers, cell-phone and online stores, and the end-users themselves.
