Currently, five major manufacturers compete in this market; see links below.

And perhaps most amazingly, it's taken a $300m investment from Intel to get manufacturers to compete at all.

"American and Canadian manufacturers may not compete head to head as often thought," he said.

Some 80 manufacturers will compete to sell just 800,000 color TV's this year.

Nor do the two manufacturers compete head-to-head for many military contracts.

And manufacturers would be competing on a level playing field for the environmentally concious consumer.

While there may be some quality differences between the makers' products, manufacturers generally compete on little more than price.

But the government is counting on the rating system to encourage manufacturers to compete with one another to do better.

It is primarily in the area of zero day virus performance that manufacturers now compete.

If manufacturers cannot compete to begin with, the argument goes, they may never get enough experience to become competitive.