[1] A dominant design is the one that wins the allegiance of the marketplace, the one to which competitors and innovators must adhere if they hope to command significant market following.
[2] When a new technology emerges (e.g. computer GUI operating systems) – often firms will introduce a number of alternative designs (e.g. Microsoft – Windows, Apple Inc. – Mac OS and IBM – OS/2).
[5] Dominant designs end up capturing the allegiance of the marketplace; this can be due to network effects, technological superiority, or strategic manoeuvering by the sponsoring firms.
After the emergence of the dominant design, some firms accumulate complementary assets and exploit possible economies of scale, which in turn raises entry and mobility barriers in the industry.
[12] Utterback and Kim (1985) and Anderson and Tushman (1990) considered the effect of a disruption that invades a mature industry and thus starts a new cycle.
In each cycle, the number of firms increases in the early ("fluid" or "ferment") period, reaches a peak with the emergence of the dominant design, decreases until a few firms dominate the industry, and then restarts again when a disruption creates the conditions for a new wave of entry and the re-enactment of the industry life cycle.