Industry Life Cycle

The PC industry has started to develop fast in the 80 's when IBM launched its first PC series and later on when numerous small companies entered the market. PC is a new product and companies had to create the demand to it from the scratch.

Primary assumptions to the theory include, high barriers to entry and exit, high sunk costs and imperfect knowledge of the market. In addition, this paper will analyze the company’s current standing in the market along with competitive strategies executed to grasp a greater portion of market share.

The maturity phase is when growth tapers off from the dramatic levels that are seen in the growth phase (Porter, 1980). The market leader position becomes clearly defined and is often seen as the dominate name within the industry in the eyes of the consumer (Kolter, 2012). The focus of the firm in this phase is that of maximising profits that were forfeited in the growth phase in favour of market share and seeking to attain internal process efficiencies to secure the maximum possible profit margin (Hill, 2013).

The PCs became a commodity. Microsoft grew to be the leader in the operating system market continuing to develop their Windows GUI line. With Windows, software standards have been established allowing software developers to certify their products to meet Windows requirements and deliver controlled performance. In addition, the PCs allowed numerous hardware manufacturers to

The things you use everyday like personal computers, phones, and video games, were most likely created in the 1980s. During the 1980s, the technology of the time was affected by the start of the computer age and the release of the popular arcade game, Pac-Man, and many more events. These events were important during the 80s, and they are still important to this day.

Microsoft Corporation and Intel Corporation are the two major companies constituting a market capitalization of $400 billion dollars (YCharts 2014) that strongly represent their gigantic presence in the technology and innovation industry. The association between both the companies for the development of ‘Wintel’ PCs led to the transformation of PC business since 1980s (Wingfield & Clark 2011). The simulation focused merely on the Wintel PCs market and demanded both companies to release new versions of its microprocessors and operating systems (OS) and also price them along various stages of its product’s life cycle. As the products offered by both the companies were complimentary and bundled together, therefore the core objective was not

* In 1981, IBM entered PC market used Microsoft’s DOS OS and microprocessor and will be Apple best rival for the start on 1981. Jobs forced out in 1985.

True to nearly any commoditized product, pricing and availability became the only two significant differentiators quickly as Intel increased

The transportation industry is cyclical for several reasons and relies on different aspects of performance from other industries. First, cyclonical industries is defined as an industry which is sensitive to the performance of the overall economy (cyclical industry, n.d.). Many of the items that are affected by this are consumable, but also durable in nature. This can cause individuals to put off making these purchases due to the overall performance of the economy. These do sell very well when there is a boom in the performance though. The transportation industry is like this due to the fact a lot of the items they move are these. If the end consumer is not making the purchase then there is no need for companies to make and send items.

Rivalry among existing firms: With the convergance of new designs and technologies, the range of new vehicle types has increased. New vehicles include passenger vans, SUVs, micro cars, etc. All the emphasis by manufactures was on global models, national markets were characterized by their differences than by their similarities. A major problem for the industry was the tendency for the growth of production capacity to outstrip the growth in the demand for cars. In the market where the demand was growing faster , growth of production capacity outsripped growth in demand.

During the mainframe system era, IBM’s competitors began selling cheaper and high performing IBM compatible central processing units that posed a threat to the company. Entry of Japanese competitors posed a threat to IBM because they had the technical capability to build a powerful computer that matched IBM’s mainframe system. Customers began buying clones from competing companies who promised

The large capital requirements to enter the computer industry combined with established brand identities of the current incumbents make barriers to entry high, not to mention the economies of scale and distribution channels that incumbents enjoy which make entry barriers even higher. The current PC incumbents enjoy demand-side benefit of scale in the business sector where PC buyers prefer to buy products from large trusted companies, raising the level of entry barriers.

IBM’s mainframe thinking- in terms of pricing and cost structure IBM tried to launch it in the middle market-and it bombed. It also blinded IBM to the much faster evolutionary path of the PC.

We selected the Brazilian automotive industry as our study setting for several reasons. Brazil has an expanding local market, inexpensive labor costs, relatively weak labor union bargaining power, and access to other developing markets through Mercosur (Southern Common Market). Brazil is also the largest market in Latin America and one of the largest in the world, representing the core block of emerging economies known as BRIC, along with Russia, India, and China. Presently, there are many well-structured clusters of auto parts suppliers and assemblers across the country, and Brazil hosts all the world 's car manufacturers.

As a result of this research there were obtained two important conclusions. The first conclusion is that US and Europe could improve production processes of vehicles to overcome the energy use and environmental effects issues. The second conclusion is that it was difficult to compete with Japanese companies, because they, especially Toyota, had developed a different method from the others enterprises and consisted of a more developed system than a simple mass production (Graves A. and Madigan, D., 2012)