The deal is an implicit admission of failure: NEC is the top PC maker in Japan, with a 20% market share, but globally its share is less than 1%.

In other words, this was a contest where the success of your pet organization to make it to the top 100 was dependent on the failure of millions others.

Supplier failure, traditionally among the very top supply chain risks, was ranked low by a community struggling more with excess demand than shaky suppliers.