EURAS Proceedings 2006

Introduction What will be the next generation DVD? Will Mobile WIMAX (IEEE 802.16e) have a good chance to become an accepted standard for wireless telecommunication? Which fuel cell technology will we use in the future? Since classic battles between standards like QWERTY versus Dvorak and the Betamax / Video 2000 / VHS quarrel, such battles emerge time and again. The R&D investments as well as the cost of the standards battle itself can be quite substantial and the result of the battle can mean the difference between depreciation of this money or enormous returns on investment. Scholars have paid attention to these battles and have found factors that can be decisive for winning or losing such a battle. Many publications are available but the literature is fragmented and does not provide us with one overall framework in which all relevant factors are integrated. In this paper we intend to conduct a meta-analysis of the literature in order to come to a set of factors that, we hope, is complete. This set of factors will be tested by applying it to a classic example of a standards battle; the video case. Based on that, we arrive at conclusions about the added value of our approach…