A study on the standards in optical storage device industry

Standards have been a very important issue in many industries as the innovators of the standard technology have tremendous power in the industry. The standard holders are supposed to have the dominant market position and technology leadership for further generation of the product as well as direct royalty income from the intellectual property. However, other various forces are also included in the evolution of the market and the technology. This thesis deals with the issues related to the evolution of standards in the optical storage device industry and other forces leading the market competition. Philips and Sony, the innovators of the CD technology, had taken the technology leadership of the industry for more than a decade. However, early followers such as Toshiba, Hitachi, and Panasonic took the leading position of the market, and competed with Philips and Sony for the standardization of DVD. The increased number of participants and the influence of complementors made the DVD standardization process much more complex. This trend will continue as current market leaders, who are late entrants, are added to the standard competition. This case shows that not only taking advantage from standardization but also proper market entry timing and continuous innovation is important for success in the optical storage market.

Department dc:contributor.department

Management of Technology Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2000

Author dc:creator

• Lee, Do-Joon, 1965-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Michael A. Cusumano.

• Management of Technology Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/9220

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/9220