Although the personal computer (PC) appeared in the seventies, this industry really boomed only after IBM launched its PC, in 1981. Through an aggressive outsourcing strategy, IBM rapidly conquered the market, but this strategy also caused lost of internal competences to its main partners, Intel and Microsoft and also to autonomous vendors. Many PC manufacturers have appeared since then. In Brazil, nowadays, PC industry is relegated to assemble imported kits, with small value locally added and also to manufacture final steps of components production. After the end of a protectionist law characterized by the abrupt exposure to foreign competitors, the Brazilian PC and semiconductors industries collapsed. To achieve insertion in the global chain, Brazilian companies need to cope with the qualification performance criteria to participate in the outsourcing process.Based on a theoretical background that encompasses outsourcing, innovation, value and the evolution of PC industry, this paper intends to investigate the Brazilian PC industry competitiveness and the constraints to its insertion in the global market. The adopted methodological approach was multiple cases, whose selection criteria were: different roles in the value chain; the degree of verticalization; the main market aimed and company size.
outsourcing; innovation; personal computer industry; competitive strategy
