HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...
, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a
vendor In a supply chain, a vendor, supplier, provider or a seller, is an enterprise that contributes goods or services. Generally, a supply chain vendor manufactures inventory/stock items and sells them to the next link in the chain. Today, these terms ...
for
product Product may refer to: Business * Product (business), an item that serves as a solution to a specific consumer problem. * Product (project management), a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution Mathematics * Produ ...
s, unable to use another vendor without substantial
switching costs Switching costs or switching barriers are terms used in microeconomics, strategic management, and marketing. They may be defined as the disadvantages or expenses consumers feel they experience, along with the economic and psychological costs of swit ...
. The use of
open standard An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definition ...
s and alternative options makes systems tolerant of change, so that decisions can be postponed until more information is available or unforeseen events are addressed. Vendor lock-in does the opposite: it makes it difficult to move from one solution to another. Lock-in costs that create barriers to market entry may result in
antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
action against a
monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
.


Lock-in types

; Monopolistic : Whether a single vendor controls the market for the method or technology being locked in to. Distinguishes between being locked to the mere technology, or specifically the vendor of it. This class of lock-in is potentially technologically hard to overcome if the monopoly is held up by barriers to market that are nontrivial to circumvent, such as patents, secrecy, cryptography or other technical hindrances. ; Collective : Whether individuals are locked in collectively, in part through each other. Economically, there is a ''cost to resist'' the locally dominant choice, as if by friction between individuals. In a mathematical model of differential equations, disregarding
discreteness Discrete may refer to: *Discrete particle or quantum in physics, for example in quantum theory *Discrete device, an electronic component with just one circuit element, either passive or active, other than an integrated circuit *Discrete group, a g ...
of individuals, this is a
distributed parameter system In control theory, a distributed-parameter system (as opposed to a lumped-parameter system) is a system whose state space is infinite-dimensional. Such systems are therefore also known as infinite-dimensional systems. Typical examples are system ...
in market share, applicable for modeling by
partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a Multivariable calculus, multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be sol ...
s, for example the
heat equation In mathematics and physics, the heat equation is a certain partial differential equation. Solutions of the heat equation are sometimes known as caloric functions. The theory of the heat equation was first developed by Joseph Fourier in 1822 for t ...
. This class of lock-in is potentially inescapable to rational individuals not otherwise motivated, by creating a
prisoner's dilemma The Prisoner's Dilemma is an example of a game analyzed in game theory. It is also a thought experiment that challenges two completely rational agents to a dilemma: cooperate with their partner for mutual reward, or betray their partner ("defe ...
—if the cost to resist is greater than the cost of joining, then the locally optimal choice is to join—a barrier that takes cooperation to overcome. The distributive property (cost to resist the locally dominant choice) alone is not a
network effect In economics, a network effect (also called network externality or demand-side economies of scale) is the phenomenon by which the value or utility a user derives from a good or service depends on the number of users of compatible products. Net ...
, for lack of any
positive feedback Positive feedback (exacerbating feedback, self-reinforcing feedback) is a process that occurs in a feedback loop which exacerbates the effects of a small disturbance. That is, the effects of a perturbation on a system include an increase in the ...
; however, the addition of
bistability In a dynamical system, bistability means the system has two stable equilibrium states. Something that is bistable can be resting in either of two states. An example of a mechanical device which is bistable is a light switch. The switch lever ...
per individual, such as by a switching cost, qualifies as a network effect, by distributing this instability to the collective as a whole.


Technology lock-in

As defined by ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'', this is a non-monopoly (mere technology), collective (on a society level) kind of lock-in: Examples: * The continued prevalence of the
QWERTY QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created f ...
keyboard layout is said to be caused by technological lock-in. * Carbon lock-in is the theory that society has become reliant on carbon intensive technologies, thereby hindering
renewable energy commercialization Renewable energy commercialization involves the deployment of three generations of renewable energy technologies dating back more than 100 years. First-generation technologies, which are already mature and economically competitive, include b ...
. * Converting one lossy file format into another incurs a
generation loss Generation loss is the loss of quality between subsequent copies or transcodes of data. Anything that reduces the quality of the representation when copying, and would cause further reduction in quality on making a copy of the copy, can be consid ...
that reduces quality. This is in effect a switching cost. Therefore, if valuable content is encoded in the format, this creates a need for continued compatibility with it.


Personal technology lock-in

Technology lock-in, as defined, is strictly of the collective kind. However, the personal variant is also a possible
permutation In mathematics, a permutation of a set is, loosely speaking, an arrangement of its members into a sequence or linear order, or if the set is already ordered, a rearrangement of its elements. The word "permutation" also refers to the act or proc ...
of the variations shown in the table, but with no monopoly and no collectivity, it would be expected to be the weakest lock-in. Equivalent personal examples: * A person who has become proficient on QWERTY keyboards will have an incentive to continue using QWERTY keyboards. * A car owner has an incentive to make use of their car, because using it is cheap compared to the total cost of car ownership; the car is said to be a
sunk cost In economics and business decision-making, a sunk cost (also known as retrospective cost) is a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are contrasted with '' prospective costs'', which are future costs that may be ...
. * A person who has ripped their CD collection to MP3 will have an incentive to prefer audio equipment that supports this format; and vice versa, for personal investment reasons, has an incentive to continue ripping to this format. * A person who has most of their multimedia equipment interconnected with
HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controller, ...
will tend to seek HDMI compatibility to all their other multimedia-capable equipment (although this is a far less severe case of lock-in than those above, due to the wide availability of
adapter An adapter or adaptor is a device that converts attributes of one electrical device or system to those of an otherwise incompatible device or system. Some modify power or signal attributes, while others merely adapt the physical form of one c ...
s that can be used to connect HDMI equipment to and from—for instance—
DVI Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video display interface developed by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). The digital interface is used to connect a video source, such as a video display controller, to a display device, such as a comp ...
or
DisplayPort DisplayPort (DP) is a digital display interface developed by a consortium of PC and chip manufacturers and standardized by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). It is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device su ...
equipment).


Collective vendor lock-in

There exist lock-in situations that are both monopolistic and collective. Having the worst of two worlds, these can be very hard to escape — in many examples, the cost to resist incurs some level of isolation from the (dominating technology in) society, which can be socially costly, yet direct competition with the dominant vendor is hindered by compatibility. As one blogger expressed: While
MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
is patent-free as of 2017, in 2001 it was both patented and entrenched, as noted by
Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman (; born March 16, 1953), also known by his initials, rms, is an American free software movement activist and programmer. He campaigns for software to be distributed in such a manner that its users have the freedom to ...
in that year (in justifying a lax license for
Ogg Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression. Vorbis is most commonly used in conjun ...
): More examples: * Proprietary file formats that have become widespread on the Web: examples include
GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
(patent expired),
Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...
and
H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...
. * Communication services that require membership with the same vendor as the communication partner: Unlike telephone service providers or email service providers, which enable communication with competing providers' users, services like
Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...
and
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
are effectively single-vendor communication protocols. Facebook is said to have achieved technological lock-in, in terms of its self-reinforcing presence on a society level. However, if the lock-in is to Facebook specifically, not
social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
in general, then it is fair to promote this title to collective ''vendor'' lock-in.


Examples


Microsoft

The
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...
, in its March 24, 2004 decision on Microsoft's business practices, quotes, in paragraph 463, Microsoft general manager for
C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
development Aaron Contorer as stating in a February 21, 1997 internal Microsoft memo drafted for
Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
:
"The
Windows API The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. The name Windows API collectively refers to several different platform implementations th ...
is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most ISVs ndependent software vendorswould be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead. It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO otal cost of ownership our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties. Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, utit would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move. In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago. The Windows franchise is fueled by application development which is focused on our core APIs."
Microsoft's application software also exhibits lock-in through the use of proprietary
file format A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free. Some file formats ...
s.
Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365 software suites. Though primarily an email client, Outlook also includes such functions as Calen ...
uses a proprietary, publicly undocumented datastore format. Present versions of Microsoft Word have introduced a new format MS-OOXML. This may make it easier for competitors to write documents compatible with Microsoft Office in the future by reducing lock-in. Microsoft released full descriptions of the file formats for earlier versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint in February 2008.


Apple Inc.

Prior to March 2009, digital music files with
digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. ...
were available for purchase from the
iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...
, encoded in a proprietary derivative of the AAC format that used Apple's
FairPlay FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology developed by Apple Inc. It is built into the MP4 multimedia file format as an encrypted AAC audio layer, and was used until April 2009 by the company to protect copyrighted works sold ...
DRM system. These files are compatible only with Apple's
iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...
media player software on Macs and
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, their
iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...
portable digital music players, iPhone
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s,
iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...
tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being comput ...
s, and the
Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...
ROKR E1 The Motorola ROKR (), the first version of which was informally known as the iTunes phone, was a series of mobile phones from Motorola, part of a 4LTR line developed before the spin out of Motorola Mobility. ROKR models were released starting ...
and SLVR mobile phones. As a result, that music was locked into this ecosystem and available for portable use only through the purchase of one of the above devices, or by burning to CD and optionally re-ripping to a DRM-free format such as
MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...
or
WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...
. In January, 2005, an
iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...
purchaser named Thomas Slattery filed a suit against Apple for the "unlawful bundling" of their
iTunes Music Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,000 ...
and iPod device. He stated in his brief: "Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice." At the time Apple was stated to have an 80% market share of digital music sales and a 90% share of sales of new music players, which he claimed allowed Apple to horizontally leverage its dominant positions in both markets to lock consumers into its complementary offerings. In September 2005, U.S. District Judge James Ware approved '' Slattery v. Apple Computer Inc.'' to proceed with monopoly charges against Apple in violation of the
Sherman Antitrust Act The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 (, ) is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce. It was passed by Congress and is named for Senator John Sherman, its principal author. Th ...
. On June 7, 2006, the
Norwegian Consumer Council The Consumer Council of Norway (Norwegian: ''Forbrukerrådet'') is a Norwegian government agency and consumer protection organisation established in 1953. It works to increase consumer influence in society, to contribute to consumer-friendly develo ...
stated that Apple's
iTunes Music Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,000 ...
violates Norwegian law. The contract conditions were vague and "clearly unbalanced to disfavor the customer". The retroactive changes to the
DRM DRM may refer to: Government, military and politics * Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd * Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar * Direction du renseignement milita ...
conditions and the incompatibility with other music players are the major points of concern. In an earlier letter to Apple, consumer ombudsman
Bjørn Erik Thon Bjørn Erik Thon (born 6 February 1964) is a Norwegian jurist and ombudsman. Career He graduated as cand.jur. in 1989. From 1999 to 2000, during the first cabinet Bondevik Thon worked as a political advisor in the Ministry of Justice and the ...
complained that iTunes' DRM mechanism was a lock-in to Apple's music players, and argued that this was a conflict with consumer rights that he doubted would be defendable by Norwegian copyright law. , tracks on the
EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
label became available in a DRM-free format called
iTunes Plus The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,000 ...
. These files are unprotected and are encoded in the AAC format at 256
kilobits per second In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
, twice the bitrate of standard tracks bought through the service. iTunes accounts can be set to display either standard or iTunes Plus formats for tracks where both formats exist. These files can be used with any player that supports the AAC file format and are not locked to Apple hardware. They can be converted to MP format if desired. As of January 6, 2009, all four big music studios (
Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
,
Sony BMG Sony BMG Music Entertainment was an American record company owned as a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann. The venture's successor, the revived Sony Music, is wholly owned by Sony, following their buyout o ...
,
Universal Universal is the adjective for universe. Universal may also refer to: Companies * NBCUniversal, a media and entertainment company ** Universal Animation Studios, an American Animation studio, and a subsidiary of NBCUniversal ** Universal TV, a ...
, and
EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...
) have signed up to remove the DRM from their tracks, at no extra cost. However, Apple charges consumers to have previously purchased DRM music restrictions removed.


Google

Although
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
has stated its position in favor of interoperability, the company has taken steps away from open protocols replacing open standard Google Talk by proprietary protocol Google Hangouts. Also, Google's Data Liberation Front has been inactive on Twitter since 2013 and its official website, www.dataliberation.org, now redirects to a page on Google's FAQs, leading users to believe the project has been closed. Google's mobile operating system Android is open source; however, the operating system that comes with the phones that most people actually purchase in a store is more often than not shipped with many of Google's proprietary applications that promote users to use only Google services.


Other examples

* Many printer manufacturers claim that if any ink cartridges, beyond those sold by themselves, are used in the printer, the warranty of the printer becomes void. Lexmark tried to go further, making ink cartridges containing an authentication system, the purpose of which was intended to make it illegal in the United States (under the
DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or s ...
) for a competitor to make an ink cartridge compatible with Lexmark printers. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held in 2004 that third parties replicating such devices purely to make their cartridges interface with printers does not in fact violate the DMCA. * Test strips for
glucose meter A glucose meter, also referred to as a "glucometer", is a medical device for determining the approximate concentration of glucose in the blood. It can also be a strip of glucose paper dipped into a substance and measured to the glucose chart. ...
s are typically made for a specific make or model. Strips designed for Accu-chek devices, for example, are incompatible with meters from other manufacturers. This lack of standardization can lead to problems especially in
developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
, where glucose meters and their associated strips are a scarce commodity. Some companies, despite claiming to have lifetime warranty on their products, stop making specific models and their respective strips so that even those who have a good functioning model have to buy a new model. * The
K-Cup Keurig is a beverage brewing system for home and commercial use. The machines are manufactured by the American company Keurig Dr Pepper. The main Keurig products are: K-Cup pods, which are single-serve coffee containers; other beverage pods; an ...
single-serving coffee pod system was covered by a patent owned by
Keurig Keurig is a beverage brewing system for home and commercial use. The machines are manufactured by the American company Keurig Dr Pepper. The main Keurig products are: K-Cup pods, which are single-serve coffee containers; other beverage pods; and ...
, which is a subsidiary of
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Keurig Dr Pepper Inc., formerly Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (1981–2014) and Keurig Green Mountain (2014–2018), is a publicly traded American beverage and coffeemaker conglomerate with headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts. Formed in ...
, and no other manufacturer could create K-Cup packs compatible with Keurig coffee makers without a license from Keurig. While the company does have patents on improvements to the system, the original K-Cup patents expired in September 2012. Other single-serving coffee brands, such as
Nespresso Nestlé Nespresso S.A., trading as Nespresso, is an operating unit of the Nestlé Group, based in Lausanne, Switzerland. Nespresso machines brew espresso and coffee from coffee capsules (or ''pods'' in machines for home or professional use), ...
, also have proprietary systems. *
Lens mount A lens mount is an interface – mechanical and often also electrical – between a photographic camera body and a lens. It is a feature of camera systems where the body allows interchangeable lenses, most usually the rangefinder camera, singl ...
s of competing
camera A camera is an Optics, optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), ...
manufacturers are almost always incompatible. Therefore, a photographer with a set of lens mounts of a certain manufacturer will prefer not to buy a camera from another manufacturer. *
Nvidia Nvidia CorporationOfficially written as NVIDIA and stylized in its logo as VIDIA with the lowercase "n" the same height as the uppercase "VIDIA"; formerly stylized as VIDIA with a large italicized lowercase "n" on products from the mid 1990s to ...
, as of 2018, still only supports the proprietary
Nvidia G-Sync G-Sync is a Proprietary software, proprietary adaptive sync technology developed by Nvidia aimed primarily at eliminating screen tearing and the need for software alternatives such as Analog television#Vertical synchronization, Vsync. G-Sync elimi ...
despite the availability of the open
Video Electronics Standards Association VESA (), formally known as Video Electronics Standards Association, is an American technical standards organization for computer display standards. The organization was incorporated in California in July 1989To retrieve the information, searc ...
(VESA) standard Adaptive Sync technology (
FreeSync FreeSync is an adaptive synchronization technology for LCD and OLED displays that support a variable refresh rate aimed at avoiding tearing and reducing stuttering caused by misalignment between the screen's refresh rate and the content's fr ...
). In January 2019, Nvidia announced that it will advance compatibility of its video cards with FreeSync-compatible monitors. *Some cordless tool manufacturers make batteries that fit only their own brand of tools, and often are not backwards compatible. Often multiple brands are owned by the same company, and share tool designs and features, accessories and batteries are deliberately changed to make them incompatible. An example would be
Stanley Black & Decker Stanley Black & Decker, Inc., formerly known as The Stanley Works, is a Fortune 500 American manufacturer of industrial tools and household hardware and provider of security products. Headquartered in the greater Hartford city of New Britain, ...
who also owns or manufactures
Black & Decker Black+Decker Inc. is an American manufacturer of power tools, accessories, hardware, home improvement products, home appliances and fastening systems headquartered in Towson, Maryland, north of Baltimore, Maryland, USA, where the company was o ...
,
DeWalt DeWalt Industrial Tool Company (stylized as DᴇWALT) is an American worldwide manufacturer of power tools and hand tools for the construction, manufacturing and woodworking industries, as well as home craftspeople. DeWalt is a registered trad ...
,
Porter Cable Porter-Cable is an American company that manufactures power tools. Known for pioneering the portable belt sander, helical-drive circular saw, and portable band saw, it is a subsidiary of Stanley Black & Decker. History Porter-Cable was foun ...
, Mastercraft, and Craftsman. All use almost identical batteries, yet all have some feature designed to stop use in other tools. *
Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
laptops will 'throttle', or limit the processing speed available to the end-user, if genuine Dell OEM power supplies are not used with their devices (Users are presented with the warning: "The AC adapter type cannot be determined. This will prevent optimal system performance.").


See also

*
Closed platform A closed platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem is a software system wherein the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and/or media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or content. This ...
*
Data portability Data portability is a concept to protect users from having their data stored in "silos" or "walled gardens" that are incompatible with one another, i.e. closed platforms, thus subjecting them to vendor lock-in and making the creation of data backups ...
*
Embrace, extend and extinguish "Embrace, extend, and extinguish" (EEE), also known as "embrace, extend, and exterminate", is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found that was used internally by Microsoft to describe its strategy for entering product categories involvin ...
*
Format war A format war is a competition between similar but mutually incompatible technical standards that compete for the same market, such as for data storage devices and recording formats for electronic media. It is often characterized by political an ...
*
Free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
*
Hardware restriction A hardware restriction (sometimes called hardware DRM) is low-level protection enforced by electronic components. The hardware restriction scheme may protect against physical or malware attacks or complement a digital rights management system imp ...
s *
Network effect In economics, a network effect (also called network externality or demand-side economies of scale) is the phenomenon by which the value or utility a user derives from a good or service depends on the number of users of compatible products. Net ...
– the benefit from having a large number of people using an agreed-upon format or vendor *
Path dependence Path dependence is a concept in economics and the social sciences, referring to processes where past events or decisions constrain later events or decisions. It can be used to refer to outcomes at a single point in time or to long-run equilibria ...
*
Proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and int ...
* Protocol ossification *
Regional lockout A regional lockout (or region coding) is a class of digital rights management preventing the use of a certain product or service, such as multimedia or a hardware device, outside a certain region or territory. A regional lockout may be enforced ...
*
Subscription business model The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, an ...
*
Razor and blades model The razor and blades business model is a business model in which one item is sold at a low price (or given away for free) in order to increase sales of a complementary good, such as consumable supplies. It is different from loss leader marketin ...
*
Tivoization Tivoization is the practice of designing hardware that incorporates software under the terms of a copyleft software license like the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), but uses hardware restrictions or digital rights management (DRM) to preven ...


Notes


References

* * * * *


External links


Vendor Lock-in Definition
by The Linux Information Project
"The Intertemporal Dynamics of Consumer Lock-In"
(PDF) by Gal ZAUBERMAN
Dynamic competition
by Wikibooks
Nash equilibrium
by Wikibooks {{Embedded systems Business-to-business Hardware restrictions Marketing techniques Strategic management