Vendors spend virtually all their money in what seems like an unending loop of marketing and other expenses. The result of the spending is most often competitive parity, not competitive advantage. Many firms do not survive this level. In fact, there may even be some whole segments of the industry that do not survive this level. One such industry segment, which we will explore in Chapter Ten, is the Web browser business.
Web browsers let people navigate the Internet.
In the early 1990s, browser technology was widely available. To create new Web browsers required only a few programmers. Netscape was the first to achieve dramatic commercial success with the browser. However, there were few barriers to entry. Microsoft built a competing product and gave it away for free.