Fighting for Profit and Control in the Mobile Phone Industry

This research aims to demonstrate that using industry architecture strategies it is possible to gain a competitive advantage over not only firms competing in other segments of the value chain, but also direct competitors. An analysis of standard wars tactics will identify their links to industry architecture. Finally, it will be discussed how using standard wars tactics together with industry architecture strategies can permit to win against competitors. The mobile phone industry, and especially the smartphone segment, will be taken as the business context for proving these points. This industry has been selected since it offers the possibility of looking at different players' strategies in a rapidly evolving scenario. Competitors in the mobile network and operating system segments have been financially analyzed to assess their results, and their strategies have been discussed to understand their rationales about industry architectures and standard wars. The result is a list of suggestions about how to gain competitive advantage using industry architecture strategies and related standard wars tactics.