New Product Announcements as Market Signals. A content analysis in the DRAM chip industry

New-product announcements (NPAs) have considerable effects on competitors in industrial markets. Several studies have shown that the perceived threat caused by an NPA may trigger severe competitive reactions. Yet it is still unclear how the perception of threat by competitors is related to the specific content of the announcement. In this study we explore the actual content of NPAs observed in a particular market. We do this through a multi-year content analysis of new-product announcements in the DRAM memory chip industry. We analyze patterns in the occurrence of attributes and demonstrate how firm strategy affects NPA content. Findings from this study provide important insights for managers about the design of NPAs. It also triggers further research on the use of NPAs in competitive industrial markets.competition;innovation;market signals;new product announcement;semiconductors

Tachtig jaar Marketing

In dit hoofdstuk wordt een schets gegeven van de ontwikkeling van het vakgebied marketing vanaf 1913,het jaar waarin de Nederlandse Handelshogeschool werd opgericht, tot aan dit jaar, 1993, waarin we het zestiende lustrum van de Erasmus Universiteit vieren. Benadrukt wordt het woord "schets": de auteurs zullen hun ideeen geven over marketing in de afgelopen tachtig jaar zoals zij die hebben gevormd door literatuur, overlevering en - voor het laatste gedeelte van deze periode - door eigen waarneming. Er wordt niet gepretendeerd een complete geschiedschrijving van de marketing aan te bieden. Eerst wordt ingegaan op herkomst en ontstaan van marketing. Daarna worden de belangrijkste theoretische invalshoeken die in de loop der tijd binnen marketing zijn gehanteerd besproken, alsmede enkele andere kenmerkende elementen van marketing in haar verdere groei. Tegen deze achtergrond wordt vervolgens aandacht geschonken aan ontwikkelingen in marketing in Nederland en in het bijzonder binnen de jubilerende instelling: de Erasmus Universiteit. Na de bespreking van de ontwikkeling van het vakgebied over de afgelopen tachtig jaar wordt de marketing geschetst zoals die zich in de praktijk heeft afgespeeld bij twee Rotterdamse bedrijven in dezelfde periode. Dit geeft inzicht in de wisselwerking tussen marketingtheorie en marketingpraktijk. Tenslotte worden enkele elementen aangedragen voor het toekomstperspectief van marketing

Sustainable valorisation of organic urban wastes : insights from African case studies

Understanding the problems and potentials of the organic waste stream is perhaps the single most important step that city authorities in Africa could take in moving towards sustainable, affordable, effective and efficient waste management. This publication presents four examples of recent attempts to manage organic waste sustainably in the African context. The participants in the ‘Nairobi organic urban waste’ project have structured this case exercise in order to use the case studies as object lessons, to harvest genuine insights into the feasibility of a variety of ways to successfully and sustainably valorise urban organic waste streams. Three contemporary case examples of compost production are presented. These include composting by a community-based organisation in the Kenyan private sector and by a public-private partnership in Malawi. In all three cases, the project and case study focus is on the relations between city waste and the agricultural supply chain. A fourth case study describes the technical and economic potential to produce and use biogas from urban organic waste

New Product Announcements as Market Signals. A content analysis in the DRAM chip industry

New-product announcements (NPAs) have considerable effects on competitors in industrial markets. Several studies have shown that the perceived threat caused by an NPA may trigger severe competitive reactions. Yet it is still unclear how the perception of threat by competitors is related to the specific content of the announcement. In this study we explore the actual content of NPAs observed in a particular market. We do this through a multi-year content analysis of new-product announcements in the DRAM memory chip industry. We analyze patterns in the occurrence of attributes and demonstrate how firm strategy affects NPA content. Findings from this study provide important insights for managers about the design of NPAs. It also triggers further research on the use of NPAs in competitive industrial markets

The Key to Successful Euromarketing: Standardization or Customization?

Using a framework that incorporates notions from economics and consumer behavior, this paper examines the similarities and differences with respect to consumers and marketing infrastructure in the countries of the European Union. The conclusion is that there are tremendous differences in income levels and income spending patterns among the countries of the European Union and also major differences with respect to consumer values and lifestyles. Furthermore, the distribution and retailing environments as well as the media, differ considerably from one country to the other. The perspective of completely standardized marketing strategies for the whole European Union is still far removed. If a consumer homogenization process is taking place at all, such a process is likely to be slow. Suppliers (i.e., manufacturers and retailers) adopting Euro-oriented marketing strategies will contribute more to the emergence of the `European Consumer' than the autonomous cultural homogenization process

Structural reliability analysis of multiple limit state functions using multi-input multi-output support vector machine

Selecting and using an appropriate structural reliability method is critical for the success of structural reliability analysis and reliability-based design optimization. However, most of existing structural reliability methods are developed and designed for a single limit state function and few methods can be used to simultaneously handle multiple limit state functions in a structural system when the failure probability of each limit state function is of interest, for example, in a reliability-based design optimization loop. This article presents a new method for structural reliability analysis with multiple limit state functions using support vector machine technique. A sole support vector machine surrogate model for all limit state functions is constructed by a multi-input multi-output support vector machine algorithm. Furthermore, this multi-input multi-output support vector machine surrogate model for all limit state functions is only trained from one data set with one calculation process, instead of constructing a series of standard support vector machine models which has one output only. Combining the multi-input multi-output support vector machine surrogate model with direct Monte Carlo simulation, the failure probability of the structural system as well as the failure probability of each limit state function corresponding to a failure mode in the structural system can be estimated. Two examples are used to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the presented method

Dengue Virus Ensures Its Fusion in Late Endosomes Using Compartment-Specific Lipids

Many enveloped viruses invade cells via endocytosis and use different environmental factors as triggers for virus-endosome fusion that delivers viral genome into cytosol. Intriguingly, dengue virus (DEN), the most prevalent mosquito-borne virus that infects up to 100 million people each year, fuses only in late endosomes, while activation of DEN protein fusogen glycoprotein E is triggered already at pH characteristic for early endosomes. Are there any cofactors that time DEN fusion to virion entry into late endosomes? Here we show that DEN utilizes bis(monoacylglycero)phosphate, a lipid specific to late endosomes, as a co-factor for its endosomal acidification-dependent fusion machinery. Effective virus fusion to plasma- and intracellular- membranes, as well as to protein-free liposomes, requires the target membrane to contain anionic lipids such as bis(monoacylglycero)phosphate and phosphatidylserine. Anionic lipids act downstream of low-pH-dependent fusion stages and promote the advance from the earliest hemifusion intermediates to the fusion pore opening. To reach anionic lipid-enriched late endosomes, DEN travels through acidified early endosomes, but we found that low pH-dependent loss of fusogenic properties of DEN is relatively slow in the presence of anionic lipid-free target membranes. We propose that anionic lipid-dependence of DEN fusion machinery protects it against premature irreversible restructuring and inactivation and ensures viral fusion in late endosomes, where the virus encounters anionic lipids for the first time during entry. Currently there are neither vaccines nor effective therapies for DEN, and the essential role of the newly identified DEN-bis(monoacylglycero)phosphate interactions in viral genome escape from the endosome suggests a novel target for drug design