Well, there are many ways to collude, and the onlyillegal one is the explicit one, meaning that you secretly meet with the othersand agree to something, like what is implied in the original article. There areother tacit collusions that arise from strategy. Game theory is the study ofsuch equilibriums and strategies to maximize profits. The problem relies thatnot all managers are capable and have studied Game theory, some just get up reallyhigh the corporate ladder kissing asses and doing the political game, so the companies end up makingdecisions that go against the whole industry and hence themselves in the longrun. That is why sometimes a little illegal collusion is needed to stop thedownfall.
What was happening is that companies were spendingtoo much in new developments, but were not able to charge enough to make itworth it because the intense price competition, especially from lower endmanufacturers. Then they simply decided to stop innovating until the previous technologywas paid off.
Now, there are other ways to collude that arelegal and those are called “Cooperation”, “Joint-ventures”, etc. Maybe thedifference is that they come up front before doing it. At the end the effect issimilar, since they remove competition, at least in that front.
