WHY THE COMPUTER INDUSTRY IS RESTRUCTURING NOW

For over 30 years the computer industry has been a growth sector. Recently major players have run into trouble and many smaller ones have fallen under the onslaught of two major forces. Firstly, what is being sold, to whom, and with what margins is changing rapidly as computing moves from being an immature, high technology market for major corporations and specialists to a mass market for every size of firm. Secondly, the industry has by tradition depended on a confused jumble of proprietary standards to defend market share. Today the phenomenon of open systems is destroying those old defences. Long-term survival will mean not only adjusting to the effects of open systems on reducing traditional margins but also playing by the new rules of the resultant commodity market. Success will depend on rapid readjustment, with exploitation of the internal influences of open systems on the company value chain, in order to slim down yet achieve a new scale of productivity. © 1991.