Tied Goods and Consumer Switching Costs

Proprietary product designs create high switching costs, directly hurting consumers, and hurting firms due to intensified competition.

Understanding the motivations for open-source hardware entrepreneurship

Having upended the traditional software development, which historically was centred exclusively on proprietary, copyright-protected code, open-source has now entered the physical artefact world. In doing so, it has started to change not only how physical products are designed and developed, but also the commercialisation process. In recent years, authors have witnessed entrepreneurs intentionally choosing not to patent their product design and technologies but instead licencing the designs and technologies under open-source licences. The entrepreneurs share their product designs online with their community – people who congregated due to the shared interests in products’ technology or project’s social objectives. Founding a startup firm without excluding others from using their own invention is not a common practice. Therefore, there is reason to ask if this choice a strategic decision or irrational action due to short-sightedness or extreme altruism? Conducting interviews with 65 founders, we grounded a framework explaining that the driver of going open is a result of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors. In addition, we observed the change of identities over time among the entrepreneurs. We hope to use this paper as a pilot study of this emerging socio-technological phenomenon, which is understudied relative to the proprietary product commercialisation process.

PSI-13 The effect of Advanced Digestive Enhancing Protein Plus Technology on growth performance and fecal score in weaning pigs

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of ADEPPTTM on growth performance and fecal score in weaning pigs. At weaning, a total of 54 pigs, 7.47 ± 0.79 kg of initial body weight (BW), were assigned to 3 treatments in 3 replicates with 6 pigs per pen based on sex, breed, and BW for a 28-d feeding trial. The pigs were fed corn-soybean meal-based diets containing 0.0, 0.5, and 1.0% of ADEPPTTM (Proprietary product of Vets Plus, Inc., Menomonie, WI) in 2 phases (d 0-14 and d 15-28 postweaning, respectively). In the first week (d 3-5 postweaning) of the trial, a diarrhea pig was removed from each pen when diarrhea was observed, housed in the separate pens within treatment (n=3 pigs per treatment) and then treated with a 100-ml solution of electrolytes and ADEPPTTM by drenching for 3 days. Growth performance and fecal score (1=normal to 4=watery diarrhea) were measured. All data were analyzed by ANOVA using GLM procedure of SAS for linear and quadratic effects of increasing ADEPPTTM levels. There were no significant differences in BW, ADG, and ADFI throughout the entire period whereas a quadratic trend was observed in G:F for overall period with increasing ADEPPTTM levels (P< 0.10; 0.583, 0.621, and 0.586 for 0.0, 0.5, and 1.0% of ADEPPTTM levels, respectively) with the greatest value in the 0.5% ADEPPTTM treatment. Fecal score tended to decrease linearly with increasing ADEPPTTM levels during d 0-7 postweaning (P=0.11; 1.88, 1.81, and 1.57, respectively). There was no significant difference on fecal score of diarrhea pigs while ADG tended to increase linearly in d 21-28 postweaning (P=0.08; 533.6, 700.2, and 853.9 g/d, respectively) with increasing ADEPPTTM levels. This result indicated that ADEPPTTM could have a potential to enhance growth performance of weaning pigs at 0.5% level and might be effective on postweaning diarrhea pigs.

Reduction of Gray Mold with Preharvest Applications of Potassium Tetraborate in Greenhouse Tomato

Potassium tetraborate tetrahydrate, K2B4O7⋅4H2O (PTB), was assessed as a preharvest spray in the greenhouse for reducing gray mold of tomato fruit caused by Botrytis cinerea. Efficacy of PTB was compared with a natural proprietary product formulated by Agrichem, which was previously shown to inhibit mycelial growth of B. cinerea in vitro and was used as a positive control for greenhouse studies. Mycelial growth and spore germination of B. cinerea were completely inhibited in vitro by PTB at 25 mM. Phytotoxicity was not observed on treated tomato plants with PTB at 25 mM. Preharvest sprays were applied at three ripening stages: turning, pink, and light red. After fruit reached the final ripening stage, all fruits were harvested and stored for 10 days at either 4 or 25°C. Disease severity was reduced compared with controls after storage at either temperature when PTB was applied at the turning stage. Preharvest applications of PTB improved the marketable quality of postharvest tomato fruit and significantly reduced the incidence of gray mold in comparison with inoculated control plants, which received no preharvest fungicidal treatment.