On Thursday, April 23, 2015 at 11:42:58 AM UTC-4, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

> No, it isn't.  There are many examples of one vendor being first to
> market and getting stomped by later entrants, particularly if the later
> entrants join together to create an open standard and thus get better
> economy of scale.

An example would be Univac having the lead in selling electronic computers for
a few years, and then IBM overtaking them (although IBM did not necessarily
follow universal DP standards).  IBM certainly was able to take advantage of
economies of scale in 
manufacturing components for its computers.  The R&D for component development
was quite expensive, as was the tooling for the factory.  But the large volume
spread that cost over many units, and also led to very nice profits.  IBM's
methodologies in 
programming eventually became the de facto standard due to high volume.

Ford a lock on the automotive market with the Model T, but GM came up with a
new marketing approach while Ford remained stuck.  

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