Clarifications to my Reflections

A couple of days ago I posted about Reflections on the hardware industry which received quite a bit of attention and feedback. Great!

A number of people raised the issue that the chip-makers cannot deal with lots of small-volume customers. I am very well aware of that, and that was not what I was suggesting at all. But if the chip-makers take action that helps the downstream customers of their tier-1 customers (the board-makers), then in the end everyone is able to address a larger market. No additional support/sales required, no need to deal directly with more and smaller customers.

All I'm arguing for is a deeper understanding of the downstream market, for more care what happens beyond the next element in the supply chain.