From the evidence presented in Table, what conclusions can you draw regarding the factors that determine whether leaders or followers win out in the markets for new products?
Product |
Innovator |
Follower |
The winner |
Jet airliner |
De Havilland (Comet) |
Boeing (707) |
Follower |
Float glass |
Pilkington |
Corning |
Leader |
X-ray scanner |
EMI |
General Electric |
Follower |
Office PC |
Xerox |
IBM |
Follower |
VCRs |
Ampex/Sony |
Matsushita |
Follower |
Instant camera |
Polaroid |
Kodak |
Leader |
Microwave oven |
Raytheon |
Samsung |
Follower |
Video games player |
Atari |
Nintendo/Sony |
Followers |
Disposable diaper |
Procter & Gamble |
Kimberley-Clark |
Leader |
Compact disk |
Sony/Philips |
Matsushita, Pioneer |
Leader |
Web browser |
Netscape |
Microsoft |
Follower |
Web search engine |
Lycos |
Google |
Follower |
MP3 music players |
Diamond Multimedia |
Apple (iPod) |
Follower |
Operating systems for mobile phones |
Symbian |
Microsoft |
Leader (until 2010) |
laser printer |
Xerox, IBM |
Canon |
Follower |
Flash memory |
Toshiba |
Samsung, Intel |
Followers |
E-book reader |
Sony (Digital Reader) |
Amazon (Kindle) |
Follower |
Social networking |
SixDegrees.com |
Facebook |
Follower |
In the bulk of the cases presented in Table, the followers rather than leaders were more successful.