Collaborative Production Strategies for Technological Innovation and Leadership in Network Industries: The Case of Bluetooth

This paper notes the creative tension created by network industries in high technology production. The tension emerges due to firms’ needs to both focus on developing strong and defensible competencies and also the need to share knowledge as part of wider development networks. The paper looks at the development of the Bluetooth wireless standard within this context. We find that Bluetooth’s promoters made the standard open to create support within a competitive technical environment. Downstream profits will flow to the technology’s developers both through the creation of patentable technologies relating to the standard’s use, and also through the ability of the technology to extend the role and importance of the promoter firms’ core products.