IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/opn/wpaper/31.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Evolution of the UK software market: scale of demand and the role of competencies

Author

Listed:
  • Suma Athreye

Abstract

This chapter studies the evolution of the computer software and services market in the UK. We show that independent vendors of software gradually replaced in-house development of software in the UK in a process of gradual vertical disintegration. We trace the demand and supply side influences on the development of the market. We argue that the heterogeneity of demand for software has meant that niche markets based on externalisation are more important than arms-length markets in the process of vertical disintegration. This in turn has contributed to the creation of specialised niche market skills over general skills such as in R&D, general management and marketing amongst firms, since niche markets do not develop the skills required for large scale marketing. This lack of generalised skills is also the main barrier to the entry of firms in the rapid growth ' product' segments of the market. Thus, we argue that the nature of demand influenced the development of the UK software market and the firm skills and competencies not developed in the process prevent a shift to a different, more radical, trajectory of growth of the UK. software sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Suma Athreye, 2000. "The Evolution of the UK software market: scale of demand and the role of competencies," Open Discussion Papers in Economics 31, The Open University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:opn:wpaper:31
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:opn:wpaper:31. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: IT team member (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deopeuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.