Mastering Efficiency: Leveraging Multihoming Boundary Resources for Mobile App Development

Platform complementors (third-party software developers) play a critical role in enriching platform ecosystems. As app development becomes more costly and time-consuming, complementors must strategically allocate scarce resources, which includes selecting the right platforms to target and identifying appropriate boundary resources, such as software development kits (SDKs). Although complementors may aim to maximize market reach by developing apps for different platforms (a practice known as multihoming), multihoming can potentially spread resources thinly across different app versions and compromise app quality. Multihoming SDKs offer a solution by enabling app deployment across multiple platforms using a single codebase. However, this approach can compromise app quality due to insufficient platform specificity. This research examines the impact of adopting multihoming SDKs on app quality, providing theoretical insights at the intersection of technical design and platform governance. In addition, it provides practical guidance for complementors to navigate trade-offs when aligning boundary resource selection with strategic goals