Upgrading and niche usage of PC operating systems

Kretschmer, Tobias (2004) Upgrading and niche usage of PC operating systems. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 22 (8-9). pp. 1155-1182. ISSN 0167-7187

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Abstract

Microsoft has been dominating the market for PC operating systems (OS) for the last two decades. This paper analyzes the decision of firms to standardize on the mainstream OS family and assesses whether upgrading to the latest version within the MS family is a substitute for using niche OS. We address the following questions: 1) How likely is a firm to standardize on the Microsoft family? 2) How quickly will a firm upgrade to a new version of the mainstream system? 3) Which niche operating system is a firm likely to use, if any? We find that upgrading and niche usage seem to be substitutes to some extent, but that larger and more IT-intensive firms will rather use niche systems than upgrade to the latest Windows version.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijio
Additional Information:	Published 2004 © Elsevier B.V. LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (<http://eprints.lse.ac.uk>) of the LSE Research Online website.
Divisions:	Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	T Technology > T Technology (General) H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Computer software
Date Deposited:	06 Jun 2006
Last Modified:	13 Sep 2024 21:52
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/802

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