Markets characterized by multiple competing digital standards have room for more than one winner, unlike traditional analog markets.

摘要

most managers (and consumers) understand the key patterns of market evolution from earlier standards wars. History provides a number of examples that begin with two or more similar, but incompatible, information technologies introduced to address consumer market needs. Incompatibilities between the technologies mean users of one cannot enjoy the benefits of the other, in terms of either users to communicate with or of content to consume. Vendors of both technologies, recognizing the network effects associated with adoption, start a "standards war," given their expectation that only one will win, and thus that firms must compete for the market before they compete in the market. This result is common in markets with networks of complementary goods (such as software for hardware, media for players, and games for game consoles), where the market desires a single, dominant standard, and consumers prefer to adopt the market leader, and may even withhold purchases until a dominant technology emerges.15