Vaporware as a Means of Entry Deterrence

Marco Haan

Journal of Industrial Economics, 2003, vol. 51, issue 3, 345-358

Abstract: Firms in the computer industry are often accused of vaporware, the untruthful pre‐announcement of a new version of their product. By claiming they have a new product, critics argue, these firms try to deter potential entrants. The paper analyzes this phenomenon. It shows that vaporware is an equilibrium strategy in a signaling game in which the possibility to market a new product is private information. In this model, the possibility of vaporware can hurt consumers, also in the case the incumbent does have a new version of its product. The welfare effects of vaporware are ambiguous.

Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6451.00204

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jindec:v:51:y:2003:i:3:p:345-358

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0022-1821

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Industrial Economics is currently edited by Pierre Regibeau, Yeon-Koo Che, Kenneth Corts, Thomas Hubbard, Patrick Legros and Frank Verboven

More articles in Journal of Industrial Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().