Strategies of European IT Companies in the 1980s

Abstract

The major electronics IT companies of Japan, the USA, Europe and the UK, being multinationals with global strategies, are not constrained in their activities by national boundaries, and while they have often been prepared to participate in government programmes, as a means of securing financial assistance, this has not prevented them from sacrificing the potential sucess of these schemes by collaborating or competing with each other. Certain companies, in an attempt to conquer opponents and win the IT war, have adopted a two-stage strategy, whereby they actively pursue cooperation with competitors to strengthen their position in the short run but only in order to obliterate these competitors turned partners in the long run. It is the economic, political and strategic motives behind these international alliances, together with their implications for national IT policies, which form the subject matter of this penultimate chapter.