Market adjacency and competing technologies: evidence from the flat panel display industry

Abstract

Abstract What determines the emergence of a winner between competing technologies? We examine competition between flat panel display technologies, with the purpose of understanding of how liquid crystal display was able to surpass plasma display panel technology despite the initial lack of a convincing technological or cost advantage, and in the absence of network externalities. We propose an explanation whereby the relative availability of pathways of suitable adjacent applications markets provides differential opportunities for technologies to increase their scope and scale of application incrementally, effecting the speed of development as well as the cost effectiveness of the end products. Our findings suggest that these sets of adjacent application markets available can strongly influence which technologies emerge as winners and which are eventually abandoned.