Andy Grove's opinion made for an interesting, and imho persuasive, argument against this. Taking the laptop battery industry as an example - the outsourced manufacturers first made derivative products. Over time though, they achieved competence and finally mastery of the technology.

By opening the door and improving on what they had, even if it was a clone of something, they understood what had to be improved and finally dominated the market.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_28/b41860483...