In economics , vendor lock-in , also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in , makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products , unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs .
35-647: Translohr is a rubber-tyred tramway system, originally developed by Lohr Industrie of France and now run by a consortium of Alstom Transport and Fonds stratégique d'investissement (FSI) as newTL , which took over from Lohr in 2012. It is used in Paris and Clermont-Ferrand , France; Medellín , Colombia; and Venice-Mestre and Padua in Italy. In June 2012, Alstom Group and the Strategic Investment Fund acquired Translohr for €35 million. The Translohr system
70-437: A derailment on 20 August 2007, three months after its inauguration. There were five derailments on Padua's new installation in 2007 before its inauguration, and one on 22 April 2010 due to a misaligned switch. Where snowfall is an issue this system may not be practical: since the guide rail forms the return leg of the electrical circuit, accumulation of ice and snow on the rail could cause intermittent power interruptions to
105-410: A conventional tram, with a length from 25 to 46 metres (82 ft 1 ⁄ 4 in to 150 ft 11 in) long and 2.2 metres (7 ft 2 + 5 ⁄ 8 in) wide. Their net weight is 23–44 tonnes (22.6–43.3 long tons; 25.4–48.5 short tons), depending upon the number of car sections. As Translohr LRVs cannot run without a guide rail they are not classified as buses; those used on
140-437: A driver who stops and starts, accelerating and braking when needed. Power is provided by overhead wires and collected with a pantograph in the same way as a tram. The vehicle carries internal battery packs for use on non-electrified sections of the route. There are two main designs for the vehicles: the bi-directional STE series, and the unidirectional SP Prime series. They consist of three to six articulated sections like
175-541: A page on Google's FAQs, leading users to believe the project has been closed. Google's mobile operating system Android is open source; however, the operating system that comes with the phones that most people actually purchase in a store is more often than not shipped with many of Google's proprietary applications that promote users to use only Google services. Because cloud computing is still relatively new, standards are still being developed. Many cloud platforms and services are proprietary, meaning that they are built on
210-453: A sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties. […] Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move. In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago. The Windows franchise is fueled by application development which
245-531: A vehicle is guided by a fixed rail in the road surface and draws current from overhead electric wires (either via pantograph or trolley poles ). Two incompatible systems using physical guide rails exist: the Guided Light Transit (GLT) designed by Bombardier Transportation , and the Translohr from Lohr Industrie (currently made by Alstom and FSI). There are no guide bars at the sides but there
280-483: Is a central guidance rail that differs in design between the systems. In the case of Translohr, this rail is grasped by a pair of metal guide wheels set at 45° to the road and at 90° to each other. In the GLT system, a single double- flanged wheel between the rubber tires follows the guidance rail . In both cases, the weight of the vehicle is borne by rubber tires to which the guide wheels are attached, which make contact with
315-528: Is a proprietary system subject to vendor lock-in , requiring purchase of any further vehicles from Lohr Industrie. This may no longer be a problem after the patents expire if other manufacturers produce compatible vehicles. Several lines under construction or already built were eventually abandoned or shut down due to planning changes and operational difficulties. For example, L'Aquila , which started demolition work in 2013; Latina , which purchased new vehicles in 2016 but did not put them into operation because
350-502: Is available or unforeseen events are addressed. Vendor lock-in does the opposite: it makes it difficult to move from one solution to another. Lock-in costs that create barriers to market entry may result in antitrust action against a monopoly . This class of lock-in is potentially technologically hard to overcome if the monopoly is held up by barriers to market that are nontrivial to circumvent, such as patents, secrecy, cryptography or other technical hindrances. This class of lock-in
385-456: Is focused on our core APIs." Microsoft's application software also exhibits lock-in through the use of proprietary file formats . Microsoft Outlook uses a proprietary, publicly undocumented datastore format. Present versions of Microsoft Word have introduced a new format MS-OOXML . This may make it easier for competitors to write documents compatible with Microsoft Office in the future by reducing lock-in. Microsoft released full descriptions of
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#1732847864327420-401: Is more like a tram or light railway than a bus or trolleybus . Unlike other guided bus systems, including the similar but incompatible Guided Light Transit system developed by Bombardier Transportation , Translohr cars must permanently follow guide rails that they cannot divert from, like traditional steel-wheeled rail vehicles . The guide rail automatically guides the vehicle, with
455-408: Is potentially inescapable to rational individuals not otherwise motivated, by creating a prisoner's dilemma —if the cost to resist is greater than the cost of joining, then the locally optimal choice is to join—a barrier that takes cooperation to overcome. The distributive property (cost to resist the locally dominant choice) alone is not a network effect , for lack of any positive feedback ; however,
490-454: Is so broad, so deep, and so functional that most ISVs [independent software vendors] would be crazy not to use it. And it is so deeply embedded in the source code of many Windows apps that there is a huge switching cost to using a different operating system instead. It is this switching cost that has given customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO [total cost of ownership], our lack of
525-417: Is strictly of the collective kind. However, the personal variant is also a possible permutation of the variations shown in the table, but with no monopoly and no collectivity, it would be expected to be the weakest lock-in. Equivalent personal examples: There exist lock-in situations that are both monopolistic and collective. Having the worst of two worlds, these can be very hard to escape — in many examples,
560-633: The Motorola ROKR E1 and SLVR mobile phones. As a result, that music was locked into this ecosystem and available for portable use only through the purchase of one of the above devices, or by burning to CD and optionally re-ripping to a DRM-free format such as MP3 or WAV . In January 2005, an iPod purchaser named Thomas Slattery filed a suit against Apple for the "unlawful bundling" of their iTunes Music Store and iPod device. He stated in his brief: "Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using
595-644: The Sherman Antitrust Act . On June 7, 2006, the Norwegian Consumer Council stated that Apple's iTunes Music Store violates Norwegian law. The contract conditions were vague and "clearly unbalanced to disfavor the customer". The retroactive changes to the DRM conditions and the incompatibility with other music players are the major points of concern. In an earlier letter to Apple, consumer ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon complained that iTunes' DRM mechanism
630-543: The Bombardier Guided Light Transit system, resulting in extensive repairs at significant cost to the operator. This adds to already high running costs. Providing roll ways , as used by rubber-tyred metros , embedded in the road surface might have been useful. Ride quality is also said to be poor, little better than a bus, due to the four-wheeled design, whereas trams have trucks ( bogies ) with shock absorbers or springs . The Tianjin system suffered
665-466: The Clermont-Ferrand network do not need to have license plates . The 14 km (8.7 mi) Châtillon–Viroflay Line in Paris cost €27.4m per km, including infrastructure, improvements of the right-of-way , and the purchase of 28 STE6 vehicles. In addition, due to the tyres constantly running over the same area of road, there is significant erosion of the roadway; this has already happened with
700-493: The DRM from their tracks, at no extra cost. However, Apple charges consumers to have previously purchased DRM music restrictions removed. Although Google has stated its position in favor of interoperability, the company has taken steps away from open protocols replacing open standard Google Talk by proprietary protocol Google Hangouts. Also, Google's Data Liberation Front has been inactive on Twitter since 2013 and its official website, www.dataliberation.org, now redirects to
735-532: The Ogg/Vorbis code because of the license, and uses MP3 instead, then the problem rebounds on us—because his continued use of MP3 may help MP3 to become and stay entrenched. More examples: The European Commission , in its March 24, 2004 decision on Microsoft's business practices, quotes, in paragraph 463, Microsoft general manager for C++ development Aaron Contorer as stating in a February 21, 1997 internal Microsoft memo drafted for Bill Gates : "The Windows API
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#1732847864327770-470: The addition of bistability per individual, such as by a switching cost, qualifies as a network effect, by distributing this instability to the collective as a whole. As defined by The Independent , this is a non-monopoly (mere technology), collective (on a society level) kind of lock-in: Technological lock-in is the idea that the more a society adopts a certain technology, the more unlikely users are to switch. Examples: Technology lock-in, as defined,
805-416: The cost to resist incurs some level of isolation from the (dominating technology in) society, which can be socially costly, yet direct competition with the dominant vendor is hindered by compatibility. As one blogger expressed: If I stopped using Skype, I'd lose contact with many people, because it's impossible to make them all change to [other] software. While MP3 is patent-free as of 2017, in 2001 it
840-575: The depot. Consequently, the Bombardier vehicles are legally considered buses, and must bear rear-view mirrors , lights and number plates , and are controlled with steering wheels and pedals like ordinary buses, though the steering wheel is not used when following the guidance rail. On the other hand, Translohr vehicles operate like standard trams and cannot move without guidance, so they are not classified as buses and are not equipped with number plates. The ART system can be diverted by virtual track by
875-563: The driver using a conventional steering wheel. These systems have been likened to the tram equivalent of rubber-tyred metros , and they are also less efficient than steel-wheeled light rail vehicles. There is no evidence to prove the superiority of either guidance system. Both Bombardier and Translohr have had derailments during operation. Vendor lock-in The use of open standards and alternative options makes systems tolerant of change, so that decisions can be postponed until more information
910-615: The file formats for earlier versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint in February 2008. Prior to March 2009, digital music files with digital rights management (DRM) were available for purchase from the iTunes Store , encoded in a proprietary derivative of the AAC format that used Apple's FairPlay DRM system. These files are compatible only with Apple's iTunes media player software on Macs and Windows , their iPod portable digital music players, iPhone smartphones , iPad tablet computers , and
945-401: The infrastructure was not completed; Shanghai Zhangjiang Tram , which was demolished shortly after it stopped running on 1 June 2023; and TEDA Modern Guided Rail Tram which shut down on 1 June 2023, and was to be demolished. Rubber-tyred tram A rubber-tyred tram (also known as tramway on tyres , French : tramway sur pneumatiques ) is a development of the guided bus in which
980-563: The need to consider the flavor of hypervisor in the other enterprise. A heterogeneous cloud is considered one that includes on-premises private clouds, public clouds and software-as-a-service clouds. Heterogeneous clouds can work with environments that are not virtualized, such as traditional data centers. Heterogeneous clouds also allow for the use of piece parts, such as hypervisors, servers, and storage, from multiple vendors. Cloud piece parts, such as cloud storage systems, offer APIs but they are often incompatible with each other. The result
1015-498: The portable hard drive digital music player of their choice." At the time Apple was stated to have an 80% market share of digital music sales and a 90% share of sales of new music players, which he claimed allowed Apple to horizontally leverage its dominant positions in both markets to lock consumers into its complementary offerings. In September 2005, U.S. District Judge James Ware approved Slattery v. Apple Computer Inc. to proceed with monopoly charges against Apple in violation of
1050-401: The road on concrete roll ways designed to minimise impact on the ground. Power is usually supplied by overhead lines , rechargeable batteries , or internal combustion engines where there are no overhead wires. The Translohr system operates as a guided vehicle at all times, while with the Bombardier system the vehicles can be driven independently as requirements dictate, such as journeys to
1085-463: The service. iTunes accounts can be set to display either standard or iTunes Plus formats for tracks where both formats exist. These files can be used with any player that supports the AAC file format and are not locked to Apple hardware. They can be converted to MP format if desired. As of January 6, 2009, all four big music studios ( Warner Bros. , Sony BMG , Universal , and EMI ) have signed up to remove
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1120-644: The specific standards, tools and protocols developed by a particular vendor for its particular cloud offering. This can make migrating off a proprietary cloud platform prohibitively complicated and expensive. Three types of vendor lock-in can occur with cloud computing: Heterogeneous cloud computing is described as a type of cloud environment that prevents vendor lock-in, and aligns with enterprise data centers that are operating hybrid cloud models. The absence of vendor lock-in lets cloud administrators select their choice of hypervisors for specific tasks, or to deploy virtualized infrastructures to other enterprises without
1155-433: The vehicle. Also, as the guide wheels support almost no weight, snow packed into the flangeways or atop the rail by road traffic may cause the wheels to lose grip and become slippery. Since the guide wheels each grip the guide rail at a 45-degree angle and thus are at 90-degree angle to each other, the risk of the guide wheels being lifted completely off the rails is minimal. Critics of the system also point out that Translohr
1190-468: Was a lock-in to Apple's music players, and argued that this was a conflict with consumer rights that he doubted would be defendable by Norwegian copyright law. As of 29 May 2007 , tracks on the EMI label became available in a DRM-free format called iTunes Plus . These files are unprotected and are encoded in the AAC format at 256 kilobits per second , twice the bitrate of standard tracks bought through
1225-447: Was both patented and entrenched, as noted by Richard Stallman in that year (in justifying a lax license for Ogg Vorbis ): there is […] the danger that people will settle on MP3 format even though it is patented, and we won't be *allowed* to write free encoders for the most popular format. […] Ordinarily, if someone decides not to use a copylefted program because the license doesn't please him, that's his loss not ours. But if he rejects
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