Professor Van Alstyne received a BA from Yale, and MS & PhD degrees from MIT. He is a Professor at Boston University and a Digital Fellow at MIT.

His work concerns information economics. In designing information goods, this research concerns competitive strategy and network effects. In control over information, it concerns who has access to what information, when, and at what price. Work also balances open source principles against those that generate profits and stimulate innovation. 
Professor Van Alstyne was among the first to document productivity effects of IT and communications at the individual desktop level. His work has received an NSF Career Award, two best paper awards, and has appeared in Science, Management Science, Harvard Business Review, and the popular press.