INNOVATION

Not Made In Japan

Once upon a time, the country was a leader in technology. Now it's struggling to find its place in the digital age. Can an entrenched corporate culture change?

By Christian Caryl | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Feb 25, 2008

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  • Posted By: scope213 @ 03/13/2008 8:23:20 PM

    I work at a bank owned by a Japanese company and I will tell you right now they have by far the most backwards corporate culture known to mankind. So unless they comeback from the feudal era, examples like DoCoMo will continue to happen...many of their senior managers are old men that are only in that position because of how long they've been with a company versus actual management skills or performance.

  • Posted By: Frankliu @ 03/12/2008 10:54:20 AM

    If the Japanese want to be a part of that club, they'll have to revamp not only how they think about technology, but how they think about themselves.

  • Posted By: Frankliu @ 03/12/2008 10:48:08 AM

    If the Japanese want to be a part of that club, they'll have to revamp not only how they think about technology, but how they think about themselves.

  • Posted By: MinMich @ 03/08/2008 11:07:52 PM

    Toyota and Nikken (health products) are two Japanese companies that strongly recognize the importance of manufacturing and marketing in the U.S.

  • Posted By: crow douragan @ 03/08/2008 12:18:51 AM

    i dont believe this writer gas ever lived in japan. you cant judge a country"s technology by mere priuses and telephone companies. which television screens do we have in our homes?? what video games do our teenaged childen play each day? I think they all say MADE IN JAPAN

  • Posted By: jwhowWa @ 03/07/2008 11:40:48 PM

    What happened to the saying ,Good Americans buy American goods?

  • Posted By: vscid @ 02/24/2008 1:40:50 AM

    strange thing, but the author does no mention of Toyota, a champion car manufacturer which almost gobbled up the behemoth GM last year. Isnt Toyota a truly international company to break all barriers?

    • Posted By: Aaron61808 @ 03/06/2008 10:35:42 PM

      The author mentions Toyota specifically when referring to the highly innovative Prius.

  • Posted By: >kOmikUs< @ 03/03/2008 7:11:41 PM

    Yeah! Thats right! i agree in coment of Mr.Snakes1234... its seems that i smell somethin fishy in Mr.jthorner 's Comment., I think He's an Apples-Man...but
    Still...Japan Rocks the World of Technology........oooppps! Western's also...^_^

  • Posted By: >kOmikUs< @ 03/03/2008 7:11:27 PM

    Yeah! Thats right! i agree in coment of Mr.Snakes1234... its seems that i smell somethin fishy in Mr.jthorner 's Comment., I think He's an Apples-Man...but
    Still...Japan Rocks the World of Technology........oooppps! Western's also...^_^

  • Posted By: >kOmikUs< @ 03/03/2008 7:09:39 PM

    Yeah! Thats right! i agree in coment of Mr.Snakes1234... its seems that i smell somethin fishy in Mr.jthorner 's Comment., I think He's an Apples-Man...but
    Still...Japan Rocks the World of Technology........oooppps! Western's also...^_^

  • Posted By: solidsnake1234 @ 02/28/2008 2:35:42 PM

    "Sony's last truly big thing was the Walkman???" Are you serious?? What about the Playstation or Playstation 2 which single handly dominated the American, European and Japanese entertainment market for over a decade. Last time I checked the Playstation & Playstation 2 were considered CONSUMER ELECTRONICS!! This guy obviously just gets a massive wood when he mentions an apply product. Beside the fact that the Ipod and Iphone are as innovative as a bag of marbles. Hey!! a device that can hold music..yea thats been around since the 80s and a phone that holds music and videos; hmm,.. hasn't every phone company released a phone that can store music and movies long before the Iphone came out. But you can go online as well and organize your stuff. Sorry Apple that already exist... it's call a PDA!! Wait didn't the japanese have the ability to streaming live television directly to their phones long before the Iphone was made..yea I believe they did. Yet, according to this tard japan hasn't created anything big since the walkman. You should probably do some research before you write an article that is completely bias tard burger!!.

    • Posted By: skinnydoctor @ 03/02/2008 10:32:27 PM

      Funny you mention PDAs because in japan, no one uses PDAs. They all love to use a pocket calendar, the same kind that my grandfather had 100 years ago. This is because of the Japanese attachment to the present. That is why there can be very little innovation in Japan. Yes, they invented the Walkman. But very few other things were developed in Japan because of how tightly they hold to the way things are done now. That is why smart phones will never be popular here. I would love an iPhone, but I doubt they will ever come to Japan because the market wont support anything new. Heaven forbid they should lose their lousy UI and antiquated menus for the phones

    • Posted By: Trent Richardson @ 03/01/2008 6:14:29 PM

      @solidsnake1234

      Boy, you took a few quotes about Apple and turned it into a hate filled rant. You did everything but call the writer a serial killer and demented maniacal Apple fanboy. Why are people like you so obsessed with Apple? Can't anybody say anything good about Apple without people falling into a fit of hate induced seizures? And I've heard the iPhone compared to lots of things, but not a bag of marbles. You get one point for original trolling.

      I also noticed that you criticized the writer for saying that the iPod was innovative, just because music players have been around for the eighties and yet, that same criteria isn't applied to Sony. You said that Sony was innovative for making the Playstation, but surely you realize that consoles have also been around since the eighties, rigtht?

  • Posted By: jthorner @ 03/02/2008 10:21:18 AM

    Japan has by far the best managed automotive industry in the world and it's leaders, Toyota and Honda continue to gain worldwide market share. In the cell phone arena you could just as well have written about the complete disaster of Motorola's management. Motorola was once the undisputed worldwide leader and a top tier semiconductor company. Today Motorola is just another struggling technology company.

  • Posted By: diligentdave @ 02/27/2008 10:46:40 AM

    Japan will not change until or unless those in their child-bearing years start having many more children than they are now. And that would prove difficult, given the high number of seniors and low birth rate now, making it too expensive and difficult for younger and middle age workers to afford children.

    As it stands, Japan is doomed to be taken over, literally, I believe, sooner or later, by the Chinese, who still hate the Japanese for what they did to them in WWII. The Chinese, I believe, will sooner or later attack Japan militarily, and conquer them easily. This is not my wish (that this would happen), just my belief that it will.

    Japan is committing civilizational hari kari. But, then again, so is much of the world.

  • Posted By: Erica Asahan @ 02/26/2008 7:57:51 PM

    Erica Asahan wrote:

    I have a sister that lives in Tokyo. While her phone is her favorite "THING" on the planet, I just couldn't grasp the idea how she can maneuver on her Kyoto phone. Great thing that I have an unlock cingular phone that works great in Japan.

  • Posted By: wib79 @ 02/20/2008 2:43:54 AM

    I think the author is misunderstanding the nature of Japanese business. Japanese business is much more culturally intensive than American business is. People don't want to communicate business deals over the internet, they want to do it in person. In addition, I think it's incorrect to assume that DoCoMo cannot compete against Apple. I have DoCoMo and it blows ANYTHING the US has away with a nuclear sized rocket.

    Forget the idea of interfaces, the author is basically saying that American interfaces have always been good? Does he USE a cell phone?! The only one with a chance at being good is the iPhone. Japanese interfaces have been good since the dawn of time.

    Anyway, iPhone will find a very tough market competing with phones that have been doing this kind of thing for the last 4 years.

    • Posted By: skinnydoctor @ 02/25/2008 11:01:54 PM

      I have used Japanese cell phones in Japan and US cell phones in the US. The UI in Japanese cell phones STINKS. Japanese cell networks are great. The Japanese have no interest in smart phones, they just want to keep all of the phones "the same" like everything else in their society. Look at the cell phones offered by any of the companies. They are virtually identical except for the exterior colors. The software and features are nearly identical. Access to corporate email? Only 2 phones in Japan can do it.

    • Posted By: Fly Tech @ 02/20/2008 10:59:28 AM

      You know i dont normally post a comment but for you i couldnt resist. You say that DoCoMo is better than US, (I personaly dont care whos better) but the author basically said: If your inside Culture A then youre problably going to like Technology A( ie: The japanese menu systems cited.) If youre in Culture B, youre more likely to like Tech B(The intuitive user interface of western companies cited). Going by authors tone, it can be assumed that Western technology would have trouble pernetrating Jap. tech culture. unless they adapt to local status quo. The article is about what Jap. tech might need to do to penetrate world market, "Why other tech is better than Jap tech." Your analasis is biased and defensive of Japn. You need to pay better attention to what you read. In short, Dont comment at all in the future about tech please.

      • Posted By: Fly Tech @ 02/20/2008 11:07:07 AM

        Correction to line 8, It should read: penetrate wolrd market, NOT "why other tech is better than Japn. tech". Your analysis is biased.......

        • Posted By: skinnydoctor @ 02/25/2008 10:59:04 PM

          As someone who has used both Japanese cell phones in japan and US cell phones in the US, I can plainly say that Japanese cell phones stink. japanese networks are great, but the UI in the handset is awful. Japanese have no interest in smart phones. They just want to maintain the "sameness" in the whole country and society.

  • Posted By: akihabara @ 02/24/2008 9:50:26 PM

    The Author still believes the concept of Japan as Number One, which is very obsolete.
    I can see nothing new in this article. Everything that is wriiten seems a mere repetition of what I have seen in many articles in a lot of web sites or magazines.
    The Japanese way of company management and so forth has been criticized countless times, so that this type of argument seems archaic.
    Docomo's failure is Docomo's failure and not that of the whole nation. We Japanese know that cutting edge products are not everything. You should pay more attention to varied needs in our daily lives.

  • Posted By: akihabara @ 02/24/2008 9:38:39 PM

    The author hold on to the belief of "Japan as Number One." Docom's failure is Docomo's failure, and not that of the whole country. The outmoded style of Japanese company management and so forthhas been pointed out countless times over the years and this type of argument itself seems quite archaic. Cutting edge priducts are not eberything. We Japanese already know that we should work more on the prioducts that would cause less environmental products, and should pay more attention to varied needs that would arise in a society in which population is decreasing and older generation is outnumbering youger generation in suc a high speed that we have never seen.

  • Posted By: donizetiinacio2602 @ 02/24/2008 1:06:52 PM

    posted by :inácio donizeti- donizetirodri26@bol.com.br 02/24/2008 pm
    JAPAN ? WHO ,LL SAY. THEY ALWAYS WERE THE SECOND PLACE IN INFORMATION AND CREATING NEWS PRODUCTS, AND NOW NOT MADE IN JAPAN IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BELIVE. THE EVERYTHING CHANGE E AND OTHERS NATIONS HOW TO LEARNING IN TO DO SEVERAL KINDS GOODS AND HOW THE WORLD IS MUCH MORE GLOBALIZED , THAT ONES SPARKING AROUND THE WORD. AND WHEN WE READING MADE IN ANOTHER PLACE THAT NOT JAPAN, PROVOKE GREAT SURPRISE. BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT IS NATIONS`S UNION . CHEER JAPAN AND OUTHERS COUNTRIES.

  • Posted By: imyoung @ 02/23/2008 8:58:04 PM

    Editors: This statement in the third paragraph is patently false since both Sweden and Finland are part of the Eu (European Union) and you should know better: ???Japan spent $130 billion on R&D in 2006 (as a percentage of GDP, more than the United States or the EU, putting it in third place behind Sweden and Finland).???
    http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/index_en.htm

  • Posted By: imyoung @ 02/23/2008 8:57:30 PM

    Editors: This statement in the third paragraph is patently false since both Sweden and Finland are part of the Eu (European Union) and you should know better: ???Japan spent $130 billion on R&D in 2006 (as a percentage of GDP, more than the United States or the EU, putting it in third place behind Sweden and Finland).???
    http://europa.eu/abc/european_countries/index_en.htm

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