ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a general background to the history of the computer industry in Britain. It focuses on technical change in the electronics sector and a description of the market structure and general characteristics of the British computer industry. A key distinction may be drawn between 'product innovations' and 'process innovations' and the changing balance between these two over the course of the technology cycle. The chapter examines the effects of technical change on market structure in the particular case of the computer industry. Technological change allowed new entrants into this previously oligopolistic market and small, new firms played a major part in the development of microcomputers, associated peripherals and software on both sides of the Atlantic. The rate of employment growth in the computer hardware sector also outstripped the rest of the electronics sector where employment has been in decline since 1974.
