To simplify what is really a very complex story, every manufacturer was faced with the same business decision: either to stay in computers for the long-haul and accept heavy short-term losses; or to sell out while the going was good. One by one the different companies made their decisions,, so that the merger wave of 1960-63 left just three UK computer manufacturers - ICT, English Electric and Elliott-Automation.

But this was not the end of the consolidation by any means, for in April 1964 the whole economic basis of the industry was transformed by the announcement of the IBM System/360 range of third-generation computers. It was estimated that the R&D spend for System/360 was of the order of $5 billion. At this point, all the mainframe manufacturers world-wide were forced into announcing computer ranges of comparable performance. | computer resurrection, vol1 #1, may 1990

Heavy short term losses = Long term investment. Still more expensive then as now, about as expensive as burn rate sums today in pharma and nanotech. SW longterm is comparably easy to do these days, but most often founders have a sale strategy from the beginning.

Interesting detail: When I was a kid, the Lightning was the English Electric Lightning, then it was the BAC Lightning. Even later BAC (Br. Aircraft Corp.) merged into BAI (Br. Aerospace Ind.). This is, afaik, the only large contractor in both EF and JSF. Funny. Besides, the Lightning was a good but very ugly plane. Did a Geli model of it once.