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Lessons from the Browser Wars
An anonymous reader writes to mention a piece on the Harvard Business School site talking about Lessons from the Browser Wars; specifically, what can be learned about first-mover advantages and the upsurge in Firefox use? From the article: "As a tool for exploring how standards are set when new technologies hit the market, the browser wars exhibit many features we like to study: competition between two viable alternatives, rapidly improving technologies, the ability of firms to use strategic levers such as market power and channels of distribution, growth in demand leading to diffusion of the new technology through the population, and uncertainty. Thus, this is one example from which we can generalize lessons regarding the outcome of diffusion of innovation into a market."
Remember, this article was written by and for people who study for years to learn to speak in Buzzword(tm). They hear Microsoft(tm) say "we're innovating!" and they believe it, because Microsoft(tm) has lots of money, and everything they say must be Truth(tm)!
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
the browser wars exhibit many features we like to study
Scientific theories are developed by conducting careful experiments that isolate different variables and effects; when experiments are not possible, you look for observations that can substitute for those experiments. The browser wars have a mess of variables, interactions, and effects, and they are pretty much the worst kind of observation you can find.