This paper provides an overview of the key themes, conceptual frameworks and related tools that are used to examine cases and industry notes in the course Strategy and Action in the Information Processing Industry an applied industry analysis course that we have co-taught at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business since 1991. Through at least two business cycles and an Internet boom and bust the course has explored the impact of relentless technological change, major deregulation, and increasing globalization of competition on the structure and evolution of the information technology industry.