The CD won audio by Philips and Sony agreeing to one joint standard in 1979

In the late 1970s Philips and Sony each had a laser-audio project, and competing formats risked a replay of the cassette/VHS wars.

They signed a 1979 agreement to build one system jointly, then published the 1980 Red Book setting the disc at 120mm, 16-bit, 44.1kHz and about 74 minutes.

The deal was a compromise: Sony pushed the bigger capacity and Philips owned Polygram, one of the largest record distributors, so one format had the content and the hardware on its side.

By cross-licensing the Red Book to other manufacturers, Philips and Sony made adoption a one-format decision for the whole music industry.

Merge rival formats into one open standard

One joint standard removed the consumer risk of backing a losing format.

The Philips/Sony agreement unified the hardware and the content supply.

The Red Book gave every manufacturer the same blueprint to build players and discs.

Cross-licensing let the format spread rather than stay proprietary.

When a format war hurts everyone, the winning move is often to settle on one standard and open it rather than fight for a bigger slice.

The first CD was pressed in August 1982 and CD audio rapidly replaced vinyl and cassette; the Red Book remained the reference for CD audio and later CD-ROM.