

How Steve Jobs 'out-Japanned' Japan or out-Sony'ed Sony - lotusleaf1987
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/01/28/apop012811.DTL

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threejay
"Japan's very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don't think
that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something
that's already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it.
In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor. Out of
that understanding, they will reinvent it in a more refined second-generation
version. That strategy works only when what they're working with isn't
changing very much. The stereo industry and the automobile industry are two
examples. When the target is moving quickly, they find it very difficult,
because that reinvention cycle takes a few years. As long as the definition of
what a personal computer is keeps changing at the rate that it is, they will
have a very hard time. Once the rate of change slows down, the Japanese will
bring all of their strengths to bear on this market, because they absolutely
want to dominate the computer business; there's no question about that. They
see that as a national priority. We think that in four to five years, the
Japanese will finally figure out how to build a decent computer. And if we're
going to keep this industry one in which America leads,we have four years to
become world-class manufacturers. Our manufacturing technology has to equal or
surpass that of Japan." - Steve Jobs 1985

~~~
jamesk2
"Our manufacturing technology has to equal or surpass that of Japan."

Good thing China's manufacturing technology is equal to or better than of
Japan's!

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rams
[http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-steven-
job...](http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-steven-
jobs/index.html?page=2)

That interview with Steve Jobs has some interesting insights.

PLAYBOY: Like computers, the automobile industry was an American industry that
we almost lost to the Japanese. There is a lot of talk about American
semiconductor companies' losing ground to Japanese. How will you keep the
edge?

JOBS: Japan's very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don't
think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get
something that's already been invented and study it until they thoroughly
understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original
inventor. Out of that understanding, they will reinvent it in a more refined
second-generation version. That strategy works only when what they're working
with isn't changing very much—the stereo industry and the automobile industry
are two examples. When the target is moving quickly, they find it very
difficult, because that reinvention cycle takes a few years. As long as the
definition of what a personal computer is keeps changing at the rate that it
is, they will have a very hard time.

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Macsenour
I think from a larger view, it has always been easy to beat SONY. SONY as a
company doesn't care about the customer AFTER they have purchased the item.
Look at ANY software that comes with a device, it's simply awful if it works
at all. Even the PS3 has iffy UI. I had a fantastic device for recording for
my podcast, but getting the recording OFF the machine was almost impossible.
The last version, ver. 3.2, had menu options that didn't do anything.
Absolutely NOTHING, and that was version 3!

Beat SONY by making the inside as good as the outside. Simple.

~~~
iujyhgftrgh
Sony of the late 70s early 80s was different.

You don't remember how bad everyone else's industrial design and build quality
was compared to Sony - it was like Audi or BMW in a world of Buicks.

~~~
glhaynes
I feel like Sony hardware has almost always been really good and, for the most
part, still is today. Sony software though... not so much. Which worked fine
for decades where their products didn't include any software, but it puts them
in a really bad place in a world where software quality has become at least as
important as hardware quality. I don't know what I'd do if I were in charge of
Sony, though - you can't just mandate "we're going to become great at
software."

~~~
fbailey
yes - the software is the most horrible code you can get - I bought the most
expensive notebook Sony has and the only way to make it usable is to deinstall
everything from Sony, I bought a Sony reader - the Reader Software is the most
horrible rubbish... I bought a Sony camera ... it's unbelievable - but I think
it shows what makes Apple different - they do both. There are not many
companies who manage to be good at software and hardware. Maybe there is some
startup advice in this: Don't try to be a software and hardware company. You
double your complexity.

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iujyhgftrgh
Sony went corporate American.

After the Betamax debacle it decided it would win the next format war by
owning studios.

That meant that anything it built for the consumer also had to be good for the
studio. So for example it launched the excellent minidisk player (a 76Mb
minifloppy) with better than MP3 quality when MP3 players were 32Mb for twice
the price.

But it refused to release the minidisk drives for computers, because that
would lead to piracy - so the only way to get music on the units was to buy
all your albums again on minidisk (the studio's preferred option !) or record
them on the microphone in. Then they did the same again with the PSP.

Suppose Apple had decided to ensure the success of the iPhone, not by making
it great, but by buying a cell carrier - then limiting your calls to other
iPhone users.

~~~
ryandvm
Sort of like how you can't do squat with music/movies on iOS unless it's
through iTunes?

~~~
protomyth
Pandora and Rhapsody seem to work just fine. Audible seems to have a nice app
for all those audiobooks. Netflix also seems to work fine.

~~~
alxp
Apple certainly could have made it easier to put any old video you want into
iTunes, I think they made a strategic decision to coax people into purchasing
video through iTunes by making it hard to just drop AVIs into it. If they had
tried this with iTunes - come out with the music store before the player and
limited you to only listening to music you bought through the store, they'd
have been dead in the water. I'm sure they're more than happy with the sales
of videos in iTunes but they certainly left a pretty wide hole where iTunes
could have been the default video player for everything instead of just their
own stuff.

~~~
tptacek
The version of the iTunes Music Store where people can put whatever media they
want up for sale sounds, to me, as a consumer, less valuable than the single
place I can go now to get almost any album on any label I normally listen to,
or get the most recent episode of Parks & Rec. I'm sure there's great stuff on
sale at flea markets too, but I don't want to shop there. Sorry.

~~~
true_religion
> The version of the iTunes Music Store where people can put whatever media
> they want up for sale sounds

The op doesn't mean that iTunes would be used for _selling_ media. Rather it'd
be your personal media player for everything like AVI/Mpeg/etc. like VLC is.

I don't know how well iTunes can do this as is, but that's what he's arguing
for.

~~~
tptacek
You're obviously right. Sorry for misreading.

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redthrowaway
I don't have much to add to the conversation, I just wanted to say that was an
excellent, thought-provoking article.

