5 ms·
In the previous generation of competition, the industry structure changed from vertical (IBM, DEC, Wang etc) to horizontal (Microsoft, Intel, Cisco etc). The n
by scholia 11y ago
In the previous generation of competition, the industry structure changed from vertical (IBM, DEC, Wang etc) to horizontal (Microsoft, Intel, Cisco etc).
The new generation of competition is between ecosystems. These are both horizontal and vertical.
- walterbell 11y agoWould you view Intel/ARM, open-source software, network/telecom protocols and standardized connectors as horizontal components of these ecosystems?
- scholia 11y agoYes. In the horizontal industry organization, products ran across brands, or across different stacks. So, MS DOS and Windows ran on IBM, DEC, Compaq and many other PCs. Competition was between Microsoft and IBM etc (OS), Intel vs AMD, WD vs Seagate, OSI vs SNA vs TCP/IP etc. These battles usually ended up with one big winner, as you would expect from power laws. Things don't have to be open source to be de facto standards, just openly licensed, eg Windows. The use of proprietary connectors is a common feature of vertically integrated stacks. As I used to say, Apple is just DEC by other means. Modern ecosystems are different from the old vertical stacks because (among other things) they're cross platform. For example, Microsoft has dozens of apps on Android and iOS.