hin the computer industry today. This paper will examine the usage of those two words, "rivalry" and "competition" to see: A) if they are valid descriptors of the industry; B) to what extent the antitrust interpretations apply to either, or both, of the terms; and C) the effect that these two differing terms have on the industry as a whole.
Since this is a paper concerning precision of language, it is important to deal with definitions. For instance, it is an exercise in futility to discuss "computers" when the primary issue of rivalry versus competition is centered on the "components" of the computer (DeWitt, 1996, 58). A computer is made up of several individual components: a motherboard (the main operating aspect); a CPU (central processing unit) which is a tiny quartz microchip; a processor (which can range from 100 mhz to 400 mhz); "drives" (hard, floppy, CD, DVD, SCSI); and an assortment of "plug-in cards" for graphics, sound, video, voice and so on (Lieberman, 1998, 52).
Within these specific categories just mentioned, there are an estimated 3,000 manufacturers, all competing with each other. Their target market (some 90 percent of it at least) is the computer manufacturer who will combine these hardware components into a product called a "computer." The primary protection that these manufacturers have is design patents (Futrele, 1996, C31). In an ideal world, there would be one company that manufactured all motheboards, one company that made all CD drives, one company that made processors and so on. Likewise, all of these components would be totally compatible (Lieberman, 1998, 52).
However, it is questionable whether the consumer would be best served by such an arrangement. For instance, if only one company made motherboards, then the price peak for motherboards would be limitless and uncontrollable. The situation here is simply the standard retail development that occurs when a differentiated product be...