Abstract
The paper examines why the European telecommunications industry, having initiated the development of digital exchanges much earlier than the other competitors, has not benefitted from this early start. It is shown that telecommunications operators, the so-called PTTs, although ready to support their national champions, did not perceive well enough the differences but also the links between their usual procurement of equipment, and the new features of an R&D transaction. PTTs' bad management of the two simultaneous transactions with the suppliers explains the European failure.
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