Together with the colleagues Jesper Holck and Volker Mahnke, from the Copenhagen Business School, I am working on some Case Studies which are relevant for Innovation. The list of available Inovation Case Studies is below:

Innovation Case Studies -
Goethe University Frankfurt, Department of Computer Science and
Copenahengen Business School, Departmentof Informatics.
Case No.: 1.08 Title: Winning through incremental innovation: The case of MySQL AB.
Date: 2008
Author(s): Jesper Holck, Volker Mahnke, and Roberto Zicari
Presented at: 31st Information Systems Research In Scandinaviaconference (IRIS),Åre, Sweden, August 9. - 12, 2008.
Download: on request.

Abstract: This empirical paper explores how entrants win substantial marketacceptance, based on a series of incremental software innovationssupported by an open source software development process, and a unique web-based proprietary business model. We investigate the competitive processes a case company (MySQLAB)employed to establish a sustainable foothold in the database softwaremarket - against the odds of a large installed customer base of competitors, and market incumbents’ deep pockets and control ofsubstantial complementary assets. Our findings suggest that a series of rapid incrementalinnovations, stack-based complement strategies, an open-sourceproduct testing approach, and a dual licensing strategy all contributed to winning throughincremental innovation in increasingly commoditized database software markets. We distill seven important lessons that serve to guide managersin pursuing winning business models based on a series ofincremental, and simultaneously pursued innovations.


Keywords: Incremental innovation, market share, open source, databases.