This paper focuses on niche entry patterns in the LAN equipment industry in the 1990s. We analyze an original data-set of LAN equipment consisting of more than 1,000 hubs and switches marketed between 1990 and 1999. Modularity emerged as a design strategy that supported incumbent firms’...

The rise of Fast Ethernet as the dominant standard for high speed connection in the Local Area Network industry is chosen to analyse the relevance of increasing returns and network externalities in determining the speed of standard diffusion. Although it was not the first standard to emerge,...

We investigate the relationship between product innovation and firm survival for a sample of 121 firms in a high-tech industry. We find that location near the technological frontier is an important determinant of fim survival. Firms located near the frontier are also more likely to be acquired...

This work is concerned with the determinants of innovations and competition of technologies in the case of the Local Area Network industry. It focuses in particular on two suppliers of LAN components: the access technology industry and the internetworking industry. Two elements driving the...

Technical change can affect existing products very rapidly and at an uneven pace depending on the type and on the age of an industry. In young and fast growing industries, the process of technological change usually entails a series of improvements in existing products that affect their...

The performance of new companies coming from the demand side of the semiconductor industry is examined and it is compared with the performance of entrants coming from the semiconductor industry itself and with other types of entrants. By using a dataset of more than one thousand start-ups...