Tremendous change is on the way in the high-tech industry which means that everything is continuing as normal, it was said at the opening of the Future Horizons IEF 2007 meeting which started at 8:30 this morning at a hotel on a beach south of Athens.
"There have always been dramatic changes in the industry with the leaders in one decade disappearing off the edge of the earth in the next decade", said Future horizons' CEO, Malcolm Penn, in his opening address to the conference.
Who remembers Hughes, Transitron, Philco and Sylvania now? They were the world's leading chip companies in 1955. Even in the fabless arena companies wax and wane. Chips and Technologies was the No.1 fabless company in 1985. Long gone.
"Big companies find it hard to innovate and grow", said Penn, "their success sows the seeds of failure".
Already we're seeing big companies cutting back on process R&D. "They have hit the failure button", said Penn.
The long-term trend of the industry is that the top ten companies have, collectively, always lost market share. This process continues. Penn expects that this will lead not to mergers, but to companies simply closing their doors and giving up.
"I see little merit in companies merging together", said Penn, "I expect we're going to see companies closing and going out of business."
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