It was reported that Exabyte, a fast growing (100-fold in four years) Colorado marketer of tape drives, has decided to purchase key components of its prod¬ uct from others. For example, Sony pro^4des Exabyte with mechanical decks, and Solectron provides circuit boards. Exabyte’s chief executive officer, Peter Behrendt, states, “If we’d tried to build our own plants, we could never have Chapter 23 • Differential Analysis and Product Pricing 977 RKAtWORUD grown that fast or maybe survived.” The decision to purchase key product com¬ ponents is an example of what type of decision illustrated in this chapter?

AppendixLO1