UPDATE ON BROWSER WARS

In this interesting paper by Harvard Business School professor Pai-Ling Yin and Stanford professor Timothy F. Bresnahan, entitled "Economic and Technical Drivers of Technology Choice: Browsers" (synopsis here), issues central to the management of innovation & technology in a highly competitive market galvanised by uncertainty and technological distruption, are addressed on the basis of the past, present, and likely future outcome of browser wars.

...with respect to IE and Netscape, the authors conclude that "distribution had a larger effect on the rate and direction of technical change than technical browser improvements", effectively echoing the claims of previous research that concluded that technological superiority is possibly not the most crucial factor determining further technological development (the case of Betamax Vs. VHS is the archetypical point of reference, as Betamax lost the format war to VHS despite its being touted for being a superior technology).

...also worth noting is that in the analysis particular attention is laid on the role of a first-mover advantage, as well as under which circumstances is a second-mover likely to unseat the incumbent.