

How the Japanese IT Industry Destroys Talent - jbm
http://www.japaninc.com/node/2674

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flocial
Japan's IT industry is so thoroughly messed up I don't even know where to
begin. However, for the scope of this article, I would say that Japanese
enterprise solution companies (this is where the so-called "system
integrators" live) is a tangled, incestuous mess. I'm only going to talk about
one small aspect of it. One of the great tragedies of the Japanese software
industry is how it seems to have taken on the worst aspects of the
construction industry and the manufacturing industry. Many of the large
companies dominate the industry, at least in terms of large contracts from
major corporations and government. Some names that come to mind are NTT (the
telecoms giant has a whole universe of IT subsidiaries), NEC, Fujitsu, etc.
Yes, all companies from Japan's past glory days. Naturally, these companies
get the lion's share of stable income. Of course, they have more work than
they can handle or do so they naturally close the contract THEN find a company
to implement it for them.

Middlemen Casual students of Japan might have heard of "shitauke" which
roughly equals outsourcing but the concept is completely different. Just as
many Japanese car manufacturers have their own go to parts makers, these parts
makers might have their own go to parts makers ("magouke" or grand children
outsourcing). So basically, you have this massive web of IT companies that are
inter-connected and related in some way.

So big corporations get contracts, little companies get the scraps. This
distorts the market because naturally the companies with big name brand value
keep a greater share of the profit while the weaker outsourcing companies make
it happen. So even within these outsourcing companies, they might try to cope
by hiring temp programmers (yes, this is common in Japan and they live in
internet cafes no less) or even outsourcing it to a third world country.

In most cases, the big IT corporations (that hire top recruits from the best
colleges) are filled to the brim with project managers who might have the raw
ability or potential to code but spend their front line career simply writing
up specs and enforcing ridiculous deadlines.

As an anecdote, many symptoms of this malaise abound. ATMs malfunctioning
because of bad system code (prevalent when upgrading systems created by mega
bank mergers, the latest and most notorious being on the recent earthquake
when a donation account took down the entire bank), the Tokyo Stock Exchange
shutting down from massive trade volume (despite having nothing like American
high frequency trading), the pension system database not designed to give
people unique keys (or something like that), etc.

~~~
nandemo
> Just as many Japanese car manufacturers have their own go to parts makers,
> these parts makers might have their own go to parts makers ("magouke" or
> grand children outsourcing).

I've worked for a "great-grandchild" outsourcer. Megacorp A outsourced to B,
which hired C, which hired my company. I actually worked at A's offices so
personally it was a good experience for me, though my salary was crap --
around my 2 year anniversary I talked to a recruiter, who kindly informed me
that sanitation workers in the US earned about the same as me.

Once I went to Europe for a business trip. Though A's employees had all their
expenses paid, my own contract with my company didn't predict that clients
would ask grunts like me to go on international business trips, so they only
paid a fixed daily allowance in yen (for meals and the like). To make it
worse, the euro was really high against the yen, so my allowance amounted to 7
euros or so. After 2 weeks in Europe I was in the red. It was still a good
experience though, and I always boast about it in job interviews in Japan.

~~~
flocial
Yeah, I've worked in fancy offices too (in my case earning more on contract
than regular employees, without plump benefits but hey). My experience is that
being the outsourced to is a polar experience. You're either a hired gun with
special status or some dispensable clean up crew. It's a symptom of the rigid
labor laws that limit everyone from achieving their potential.

------
geolqued
Actual Article <http://www.japaninc.com/mgz_nov-dec_2007_it-talent>

Also Part I - My struggle at the Frontline of Japanese Enterprise IT
[http://www.japaninc.com/mgz_spring_2007_frontline_japanese_i...](http://www.japaninc.com/mgz_spring_2007_frontline_japanese_it)

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mwill
Aside from this, can anyone in the know give some info about the startup
community/hacker culture in Japan. Is there one?

I'm in Australia, and I've always had a suspicion that China or Japan would be
the closest hub of innovation and interesting stuff outside of Aus.

~~~
flocial
It's not nearly as open as what you'd expect in other countries. The hacker
community is really inward looking like Japan as a whole. You could check out,
ON Lab. Hiro Maeda runs it and is a cool guy educated in the states.

<http://onlab.jp/>

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epe
Apparently it's managed to destroy even the minimal level of talent needed to
construct a readable PNG.

------
edderly
"Instead of being evaluated on their capability to manage the overall system
architecture, Japanese IT project managers are often assessed on how they can
personally relate to the team members. Taking team members out for a drink,
listening to their personal issues, serving as both counselor and cheerleader,
are important to strengthen a project manager’s people network. "

OTOH, I've worked for several western corporate orgs where we have no shortage
of PMs, stuck in meetings and forwarding emails and not doing any of the
above.

+1 Japan

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vph
as the main picture is too small to view, it remains a mystery why the
Japanese IT industry destroys talent.

~~~
5hoom
I zoomed right in and found it has something to do with three spirals and
pixelated text surrounded by jpeg artifacts...

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droithomme
1\. This article is four years old, it was published in 2007. Have things
changed since then?

2\. The graph is unreadable and clicking to get a larger image goes through a
cycle of pages that don't have larger images but take a long time to load.

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MikeMacMan
There are a few currents working against startups in Japan:

\- Smart, ambitious people tend to join large, prestigious corporations, or
government agencies

\- Up until a few years ago, forming a company was very expensive (3 million
yen minimum)

\- Seniority is a powerful force in the Japanese workplace, which I suspect
prevents young college grads from introducing the latest technologies in their
companies.

\- Japan has struggled to transition to a post-industrial economy, and IT is
still dominated by hardware companies.

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cubicle67
any opinion from Patrick or any other HNers in JP? The article seems plausible
but is the opposite of what I'd have expected

~~~
patio11
I have a different take. Should write a blog post some day.

The usual disclaimer: Japan is a big place and not all Japanese
companies/people act the same, just like not US company is Google.

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suyash
I thought Ruby on Rails came from Japan. Hard to believe they don't contribute
to Open Source - per article.

~~~
weiran
I thought it was just the Ruby language, not the Rails framework.

~~~
bitops
That's correct - Ruby is from Japan, Rails was developed by a Danish
consultant working for a US-based firm. (He now lives in Chicago I believe).

~~~
enry_straker
Ruby Creator and chief Designer - Yukihiro Matsumoto Rails Creator and
Maintainer - David Heinemeier Hansson

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Maven911
can i get a cliff notes...

~~~
latch
"To summarize, Japanese corporations lack concrete IT strategies and the
ability to envision the appropriate enterprise architecture that aligns with
their business needs. As a result, SI services vendors adopt a ‘body shop’
strategy that gives no incentive for engineers to polish their skills.
Japanese software vendors are not encouraged to provide solutions with the
latest architecture that meets the needs of the global market. Being locked
into such a vicious cycle, even the most talented engineers have very little
opportunity to develop their skills to a world-class level."

