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Globalization of the Computer Industry (3)
The national industry structures of the East Asian countries were also well suited to competing in a global production network, partly due to the presence of leading multinational computer makers. In Japan, these were mostly domestic companies such as Fujitsu, NEC, and Toshiba, while in the Asian NIEs, they were mostly American companies.
The MNCs provided technology, managerial skills, and access to global markets. Local companies were quick to seize opportunities in the new global production network, becoming original equipment manufacturers, subcontractors, suppliers, and in a few cases, multinational competitors themselves.
In each country, industry clusters developed around one or more product areas, such as disk drives and PCs in Singapore and motherboards and peripherals in Taiwan. The East Asian countries developed capabilities and resources, from skilled workers to large supplier bases, that gave them a continuing source of competitive advantage even as rising costs forced them to move their own labor-intensive production offshore.
The rapid growth and technical progress of the computer industry in the United States shaped Asian perceptions of the industry’s importance to economic and technological competitiveness. The evolution of the U.S. computer industry also provided the impetus for its Asian expansion, first to Japan, then to the East Asian NIEs, and still later throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
The globalization process exploded along with the PC industry’s growth in the 1980s, but it had important antecedents in the earlier stages of the industry’s development.
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Tags: computer, development, history, industry