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A format war describes competition between mutually incompatible proprietary formats that compete for the same market, typically 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. A format war emergence 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〔Edna Ullmann-Margalit: ''The Emergence of Norms'', Oxford Un. Press, 1977. (or Clarendon Press 1978)〕 for the format users. ==19th century== *Rail gauge in North America: Russian gauge vs. standard gauge. During the initial period of railroad building, standard gauge was adopted in most of the north-eastern United States, while the wider gauge, later called "Russian," was preferred in most of the southern states. In 1886, the southern railroads agreed to coordinate changing gauge on all their tracks. By June 1886, all major railroads in North America were using approximately the same gauge. *War of Currents: In the late 1880s, George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over alternating current (AC) advocated by several European companies〔AC Power History: http://www.edisontechcenter.org/AC-PowerHistory.html〕 and Westinghouse Electric based out of Pittsburgh, PA. The battle between these two parties to control the market for electricity became a conflict much beyond competing technical standards. Both Westinghouse and Edison attempted to win the public to their side by instilling fear of the other type of electricity distribution through a series of extensive public campaigns of lies.〔McNichol, Tom. AC/DC: The Savage Tale of the First Standards War. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006.〕 Ultimately, the AC power system prevailed. Three phase 60 Hz at 208/120 volts became the dominant system in North America while 380/220 volts at 50 Hz became the standard in Europe. The UK adopted a number of voltages and frequencies, but 415/240 volts at 50 Hz became the standard. Europe has subsequently harmonised on a nominal voltage of 400/230 volts even though the actual voltage in individual countries has not changed. *Musical boxes: Several manufacturers introduced musical boxes that utilised interchangeable steel disks that carried the tune. The principal players were Polyphon, Symphonion (in Europe) and Regina (in the United States). Each manufacturer used its own unique set of disc sizes (which varied depending on the exact model purchased). This assured that once the purchaser had bought his music box, he had to buy the music discs from the same manufacturer. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Format war」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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