Format war

A format war is the competition between two or more different formats to become the industry standard.Charles Hill; Gareth Jones; Melissa Schilling, Strategic Management: Theory & Cases: An Integrated Approach (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), p. 219 Standards are important in every industry and format wars are common. The winning standard usually gets the largest market share. The losing format often suffers dying sales until it is gone completely.David Ellis; Julia Johnston, Split Screen: Home Entertainment and the New Technologies (Toronto: Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, 1992), p. 39  Sometimes the winning format is technically the best, but usually the different formats have different advantages.Stephen Martin, Industrial Organization in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 308 Being first or being cheaper can also help one design win out over its rivals.David Ellis; Julia Johnston, Split Screen: Home Entertainment and the New Technologies (Toronto: Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, 1992), p. 40 

 Examples 

Direct current vs. Alternating current for power distribution.
Various Rail gauges
wax cylinders vs. the Gramophone record for early music recordings
VHS vs. Betamax for video recording tape
Microsoft and Intel (Wintel) vs. Apple Inc. and Android computer operating systems
Blu-ray Disc vs. HD DVD for laser discs
MiniDisc vs. CD data storage
DVD+R vs. DVD-R data and information

 References 

Category:Manufacturing
Category:Standards