Exam 7: Strategy and Technology

Companies that are locked out of a market are those in which consumers are unwilling to bear the switching costs required for them to abandon the established standard and adopt the new one.

Technological disruption:

Marginal cost refers to the costs of:

Which of the following strategies should a company NOT adopt if it wants to win a format war?

When a company is trying to win a format war, it should license its format for a low fee rather than a high fee.

Write as if you were an outside management consultant and advise a firm attempting to win a format war with a powerful and capable competitor.Give several options.

Microsoft Word, the word-processing software, is so easy to use and has so many useful features that no other software can compete with it.Therefore, Microsoft Word can be described as a killer application.

When two or more companies are competing with each other to get their technology adopted as a standard in an industry, and when network effects and positive feedback loops are important, the company that wins the format war will be the one whose strategy best exploits positive feedback loops.

With reference to technical standards, a dominant design refers to:

The various strategies that companies should adopt to win format wars revolve around:

Format wars, in the context of high-technology industries, refer to:

The layout of the keys on a computer keyboard is an example of a technical standard.

Cooperating with competitors:

Battles to set and control technical standards in a market are referred to as product positioning.

Which of the following will NOT help an established company in addressing the potential challenge of a disruptive technology?

Which of the following statements is true about technological paradigm shifts?

Switching costs are the costs that consumers must bear to switch from a product based on one technological standard to a product based on another technological standard.

With reference to high-technology industries, which of the following is an example of a technical standard?

Consumers will bear the costs of switching technologies if:

Antibody Solutions is a company that specializes in cell-bank storage, and producing antibodies for bacterial and viral infections.It is not considered a high-tech company since it is not technically in the computer or software industry, which is typically considered high-tech.