Case Study: The Personal Computer Industry

Competitive pricing pressure from a flooded market has forced significant consolidation and has shifted the landscape of the PC market and computer hardware industry. Some group of multinationals companies leads and have managed to maintained double-digit worldwide market share for several years. Specially in the Personal Computer industry, the two computers named as Dell and Hewlett-Packard- dominate the landscape. They have significantly more market share than their closest competitors (Microsoft, IBM, Sony, Fujitsu, Apple) on a global scale (34% of all PC shipments) and they account nearly half of domestic sales. A lot of these new shipments have reflected the demand for "volume servers" and enterprise servers, often a lower-end

Though not recognized by the average consumer because their brand names is not on the computer. OEMs are the best to cut costs and to decrease the risk by allowing CMs to manage the complex component supply chains. This is possible because many CMs utilize cheaper labour oversees and others realize cost synergies because they double as motherboard components manufacturers. The time when the components gets assembled, the PC's are distributed through multiple routes before settling . Dell has revolutionized the direct -sales model, the resale channels and are still responsible for a very significant percentage of the overall market. Most customers look to traditional retailers when shopping for Personal Computers. OEMs usually take advantage of direct and indirect sale channels by selling straight to end-users through some retailers. Some OEM's have introduced their owner retail stores, like Apple and which is incredibly successful through there vertically integrated distribution channels. currently, most PC's have an Intel Processor and run a version of Microsoft's Windows operating system. Because of this Intel and Microsoft had significantly control over PC's sales cycle, measure software updates and faster Processers being primary market drivers. The dominance of

Sales of notebooks, a significant source of revenue for many companies in recent years, have been stimulated largely by the rise of wireless networking. Sales of handheld computers have slowed and competition has increased from lower-end notebooks and higher-end mobile phones. The tablet PC's have been targeted as another possible growth product because the market has become so competitive with significant advantages to scale economies, many OEM's have tried to expand their business in different sectors. But Apple is the only company who has done this more successfully and quickly to enter into the DM