PC Components
The personal computer is not a single entity but a collection of components. The components of a modern PC are rarely, if ever, manufactured by a single manufacturer but by many manufacturers who often specialise in making a particular kind of component. The modern PC manufacturer, therefore, assembles the PC from components made by a range of manufacturers.
This process is not new and is in fact the foundation of modern industry. It is based on the idea of standardisation. All PC components comply with certain standard specifications. For example, even the PC case, the housing that holds all the other components together, has to comply with size and compatibility standards. The same is true of all the PC components, including the central processing unit, the mother board, the video card, the sound card and the cooling fan.
While all of these components from the myriad manufacturers offer something unique and distinctive, they must comply with standards so that they fit together and work together to make up a working PC.
The distinctiveness of these components within the standardisation comes from the need to fill a niche market. A certain video card could be better at showing three dimensional graphics. This type of specialist video card would, of course, be more expensive than a cheaper video card that would be inadequate for 3D graphics but perfectly adequate for the everyday use of office applications. It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that there is a particular PC component for every type of job to be performed by a PC.