One customer commands a huge share of the industry. You either do business with that customer, or fall behind competitors who do business with them.
Most hardware executives I speak with today are very aware of this fact. It is a big factor driving consolidation inside the semiconductor industry. It is causing a lot of transition among senior executives in hardware looking to move to software and Internet companies.
The really troubling part is that I see no sign of it changing any time soon. This reality is part of the reason the companies have been marketing the “Internet of Things” (IoT) products so aggressively, it is the only business out there big enough to re-balance things.
