Representing compatibility and standards: a case study of Web browsers (original) (raw)
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UNIVERSITADI GENOVA s Compatibility is a key strategic decision in software production. Proposals exist for standards in several fields of software production, such as networking (ISO and IEEE), operating systems (Posix), and object management (OMG). However, a formal treatment of standards in software is still missing. This article tries to overcome this lack, presenting a model of the effects of compatibility in software production.
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In a perfect world, all software would be compatible and users can move files freely from any application or platform to any other. However, many factors move against this utopia. Understanding how vendors support varying levels of compatibility between their own and competitors' products can help a user choose a software wisely.
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Netscape enjoyed a 90% installed user base for its Navigator browser in August 1995 while the market share for Microsoft's inferior quality browser was negligible. By August 1999, Microsoft had captured 76% of the browser market. Extant theory has focused on late entrants' ability to win standards competitions through the development of products with superior quality/price performance. Yet this does not explain Microsoft's success. Microsoft succeeded by leveraging installed user bases across vertically related markets, from Windows to IE. To date, little or no attention has been paid to the leveraging installed user bases. This paper addresses this by developing an analytical framework, based on a coupled Polya Urn model, that captures the dynamics of the Netscape-Microsoft battle. The framework highlights the strategic potency of controlling a proprietary standard in a vertically related market. (P. Windrum).
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Given the dramatic growth of the Internet and information-technology industries in general, and the importance of interconnection in these networks, the economics of compatibility and standardization has become mainstream economics. In this paper, I examine several key policy aspects of standard setting in industries with network effects.
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The browser wars are probably the best-chronicled standards competition in recent history. Yet the standard lock-in model does not readily account for the dramatic change in fortunes of Microsoft. At one time it seemed that Microsoft would be go the way of IBM before it and fail to catch the next technological wave in the computer industry. However Microsoft managed to capture the browser market, overturning Netscape's initial domination of the market. In seeking to understand this dramatic return of events, the paper begins by outlining the key elements of the Arthur model. This is followed by a historical narrative of the browser wars that highlights three aspects of this technological competition; firms' strategic use of standards, users' considerations of initial set-up costs, and the degree of interconnectivity between product markets. The paper finally considers how the standard lock-in model may be extended in order to encompass these dimensions.
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We conducted demonstration experiments to promote the use of open-source software on desktops as a part of the Open-Source Software-Utilization Development Program for the education sector. In these experiments, we found some barriers to popularizing the use of open-source software in end-user desktop applications. In this paper, we report some typical problems of Web-browser compatibility, which are considered to be obstacles for promoting open-source software on desktops. We also introduce a tool that we developed to help developers avoid such pitfalls while designing Web applications.
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This chapter discusses the complex histories of the ubiquitous and multiplatform web in terms of its standardization practices. These practices took place at the interfaces of different industries (telecommunications, online services, content provision, handset manufacturing) that were on the course to converge and constitute the new industry of the ubiquitous web. The chapter focuses on the dialogues among these industries and demonstrates how their power struggles at different stages of the web evolution conditioned the design of the multiplatform web that currently appears as satisfactory for most industry players and sustains the value of the web as a global public good.