By and large, mortgage technology vendors are small, very specialized companies. Typically they do not hold much in the way of market power. As a result, mortgage technology vendors show little in the way of economies of scale; tend to operate craft-like rather than as professional product managers; have little capital with which to experiment with new technologies; do not invest in market research, but rely on serial experiences to understand lender demand; and do not possess economic negotiating power in lending markets that suddenly became very concentrated as the federal government forced mergers among large institutions, such as between Wells Fargo & Co. and Wachovia Corporation, which became effective on Dec. 31, 2008.
