Re: [OPE-L] Reliability of price channel - personal computer industry

[Paul Cockshott <wpc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Gerry:
 
The history you recount in the PC industry is in many ways fairly
typical of the evolution from a branch of production in its
infancy (when there are often small innovating firms, which tend
to exit the market or merge with another capital later) to a "mature"
market dominated by large corporations.  This transition, which
is commonplace in many branches of production, has implications
for changes in the "price channel".

Paul

I agree, the same thing could be seen in car production at
the start of the 20th century. In the case of some other
key innovations though, like Television there was considerable
less initial diversity. I think that the technological obstacles
to the development of TV were probably relatively higher than
those facing the personal computer industry. Thus Baird appart,
the TV innovations came from relatively well established 
companies.