Format war

Competition between proprietary formats in the same market 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 and financial influence on content publishers by the developers of the technologies. Developing companies may be characterized as engaging in a format war if they actively oppose or avoid interoperable open-industry technical standards in favor of their own. The emergence of a format war can be explained because each vendor is trying to exploit cross-side network effects in a two-sided market. There is also a social force to stop a format war: when one of them wins as de facto standard, it solves a coordination problem for the format users.[dubious – discuss] 19th century Rail gauge. The Gauge War in Britain pitted the Great Western Railway, which used broad gauge, against other rail companies, which used what would come to be known as standard gauge. Ultimately standard gauge prevailed. Similarly, in the United States there was incompatibility between railroads built to the standard