robo

Shimano and Campy specialize in the moving parts on a bike (with the exception of suspension). Drivetrain, shifters, brakes, hubs, headsets, BBs, pedals. They had competitors (Suntour, Huret, etc) but Shimano crushed them all in the '80s and almost killed Campy too. Shimano used to make seatposts too, although if they still do, i certainly haven't seen one for a while.

I think Campy dabbled in rims for a while, too.


It's partly about core competencies, whether actual or percieved, as someone said above. Other companies have traditionally been the providers of saddles, rims, spokes, tires, bars, and stems, as well as the frames themselves. I trust Shimano drivetrain and brake components: i expect them to be good. If Shimano sold a saddle, i probably wouldn't buy it. I'd rather have a Selle Italia or a Brooks or some other model from a company i trust as a saddle manufacturer. If a bike was specced with a Shimano saddle, i'd also be a bit bemused. That, times many thousands of customers, is partly why Shimano doesn't produce saddles, and bike manufacturers don't spec them.

The other, bigger, part of it is that Shimano has had, starting in the late '80s and continuing until recently, a virtual monopoly on drivetrain parts, which means that they could make a very fat profit on them. It costs a lot more to develop a drivetrain system than it does to develop a stem, or a seatpost, or even a hub, so it's easier for a smaller company to produce those simpler products. Shimano already had a great drivetrain system, and product managers were scared to spec anything else (sometimes with good reason, after what happened with Suntour in their dying years), and Shimano had all the economies of scale on their side (large volumes mean cheaper costs per part). Since drivetrain parts are interdependent, if you're trying to break into the drivetrain market you either have to make a huge investment (risk) and bring an entire new drivetrain system to market, or you have to work really hard to ensure that your product is 100% compatible with Shimano parts, and Shimano is certainly not going to help you with that! After that, you have to somehow convince nervous product managers that your part can really be trusted, and they aren't going to get fired for speccing a non-standard part that has problems. As they used to say about IBM, 'nobody ever got fired for speccing Shimano'. All that makes it very hard for a newcomer to gain a foothold in the drivetrain market, and it also means that Shimano can probably rake in much higher margins on its drivetrain parts than it could on stems, seatposts, handlebars, saddles, etc.

So in a way, Shimano doesn't produce stems and handlebars because it can't be bothered to. It would have to fight with all the established stem and handlebar makers over slim profit margins, instead of sitting back and raking in the profit on it's drivetrain parts.

Campy seems to have resigned itself to being a boutique brand, usually found on cost-is-no-object bikes.
SRAM has done a pretty admirable job of clawing it's way into the drivetrain market, although they are a pretty big corporation themselves, and their marketshare is still tiny, a sign of the momentum and mindshare that Shimano has.

It's a bit like Microsoft with Windows and Office. Because they have a virtual monopoly in a market where the product is complex and has many interdependencies (investment in the Windows API in Microsoft's case) and where they have a lot of momentum and mindshare (many IT directors will not consider deploying non-Windows machines, as bike product managers might not consider speccing non-Shimano drivetrains), it becomes very difficult for other companies to break into the market, whether or not the big vendor really has the best product. Right now, Apple is sort of like Campy: expensive, really nice, favored by afficionados but hanging onto a tiny shred of marketshare, and SRAM is perhaps like Linux: technically excellent, but a bit rough in appearance and without the slickness of the other players, favored by practical users, but again with a small overall marketshare. But if you just walk into a store and buy 'a computer', it's going to be running MS Windows.

Obviously, analogies go only so far, but i think there are some striking parallels.