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Japan's preference for hardware over software is fading (economist.com)
67 points by ab9 on July 18, 2011 | hide | past | favorite | 42 comments



I giggled when I realized that the author of this piece was in a hurry, and almost certainly thinks that Heroku is a Japanese company.

"Marc Benioff, the boss of Salesforce.com, a large 'cloud computing' firm in Silicon Valley, sees opportunities everywhere in Japan. Over the past year the company paid $212m for Heroku, which develops web services based on Ruby, and acquired stakes in Synergy Marketing, Uhuru and Netyear, three business-software firms."

With a name like Heroku, news that Matz is joining Heroku, and Heroku doing Ruby in the cloud, it is an easy mistake on deadline to conclude that Heroku is a Japanese company. The other three companies mentioned are all actually Japanese companies.


Well that and the language (like their database offerings) and overall visual design of Heroku imply that it's a Japanese company.


Really? Suppose you went to a website for a similar kind of company but with a prominent Wild West theme, sheriff stars for buttons and products called Lasso and Six-Shooter. If I had to guess, I'd say that company was anything but American. Heroku's website oozes fanboy kitsch in much the same way. The difference is that a lot more technologists are Japanophiles than wannabe cowboys, so we don't notice as much and just lap that shit up.


Yeah you make a point. Same could be said about Outback Steakhouse.


On that note, I remember going to Black Angus Steakhouse when the first restaurant in Korea opened at Gangnam-yeok, Seoul. The greeters at the door wore cowboy-style outfits with handkerchiefs around their necks and enormous hats that almost swallowed them up. As customers entered, they would sing out an awkwardly pronounced "Howdy, partner!" in unison. Then, rather incongruously, they would bow in the customary Korean fashion.

Now, I haven't ever been to a Black Angus in the US, but I'm guessing they don't ham it up there nearly as much. :)


The irony is that real Japanese company websites look nothing like Heroku. :-)

http://www.rakuten.co.jp/ http://www.biccamera.com/ http://www.sony.co.jp/


Well that depends.

straightline.co.jp has plenty of Japanese websites that have a variety of visual designs.


There are many interesting aspects about the Japanese arena.

One of the most unforgiving is that users do not understand that their phones are connected to vast networks or that navigation system in their car is powered by a computer with memory, et cetera.

When I first moved to Japan I asked normal people on the street to tell me what they found interesting about their phones -- I was shocked to learn that many Japanese women and men told me that they believed the popular website Mixi was just a screen (画面) that displays when the press buttons! (In Japanese: ミクシーはあたしの携帯に入っている画面だよ!とよく言われた)

One of the other aspects of software vs. hardware is that hardware is relatively easier to debug than most software environments. You will find that easy to debug environments like consoles have many software developers. This is important because the Japanese are very risk-adverse. Making claims on others and keeping everyone/everything in check is a big part of life in Japan.

Finally, programming is considered more of an engineer's profession than a creative profession. Engineering is seen as directly applying nature's laws into practice and as such, the approach is one of: "if you want to say build a bridge then you may choose from these designs that we already know are best"

Programming in Japan follows this cookie-cutter model and although there are very bright, creative engineers and programmers in Japan, the schooling system is very rigid.


I totally agree with you. Another thing reading your comment is that lots of people don't own computers and only use the Internet through phones. This really screws kids out of a chance to mess around with computers. I know a lot people still get their first computers in college, especially women.


That was largely true in the West also until very very recently. One thing that's problematic is that although more people have access to a computer these days, they are treated as access points for MySpace, Facebook, Word and games more than anything else.

When I was growing up a computer was something you programmed just like a television set was something you watched. This was a psychological result of the fact that most machines of the day (including PCs) booted into BASIC if deprived of alternatives. When schools taught computer skills they included some elementary programming (usually in BASIC) in the curriculum. Not so today when majoring in Word and Excel is a perfectly viable academic career path.

So we're screwing our kids out of a chance to mess around with computers also and while the number of people actually using PCs has gone up, they're psychologically more distant from programming than ever it seems, and I'm treated more and more like a superintelligent space alien when I mention I'm a programmer.


Does this also explain why everyone still uses console BBS's in Taiwan? http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibbs/id309616952?mt=8

I've been trying to find an explanation for this.


Putting software patents number as synonymous with innovation is not right.

Business-Software patents number are symptoms of protectionism and central planning in the process of innovation(you pay the state, they give you monopolies over ideas).

Business and software patents make the big guys the masters and the rest slaves, when everything is becoming patented, from windows to clicks adding "on web applications" or "in mobile" to the super old idea.

In any case, it will be the quality, not the quantity what matters.


As far as I recall, Japan's Fifth Generation program, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer, which had the West running around in a panic, was primarily software driven. It was seen as an attempt the break the European and American dominance of software and microprocessors but was unsuccessful. It is interesting that many of the companies mentioned in the article are small rather than the usual set of behemoths. Perhaps this time with the disruption in Japanese society with life-time employment at large corporations no longer a sure thing and with the rise of China that there is enough fear/desire in Japan to make it work.


Thanks for this. I had never heard of this, but it's yet another fascinating footnote in the parallel history of Japanese consumer electronics. The amount of money invested is simply staggering...well over a billion dollars in 2010 money.


One of the things that really shocked me is how everyone still carries around electronic dictionaries when their cell phones should be able to fulfill that capability. The idea of one-function hardware is still deeply ingrained in the Japanese psyche in a way that it hasn't been for years in the West. As an American I always find it preferable to consolidate all my devices into one (which has turned out to be the cell phone), but the Japanese still like to carry around separate devices for each task.


I'm in Japan. That's the wrong example. Cell phones came with a music player, rfid (your train pass, membership cards, and TVs long before the iphone). These electronic dictionaries come bundled with several different types like English/Japanese, Oxford, etc. that would cost you a small fortune separately and most are needed for college prep and college. Using a cell phone might work but for most adults but at school it's unacceptable for exams and studying.


You're spot on. When I first saw Google Wallet, I thought, "haven't Japanese cellphones been doing this for a while?" Also, I have an electronic dictionary, a DS with a dictionary game, and a phone with a dictionary. I still prefer to use my electronic dictionary when possible. The reason is simply that it is by far the best. It has the most extensive dictionary (including many computer terms), more (quantity and quality) useful examples, it also has better features for jumping across dictionaries and makes it really easy to quickly look up other words in definitions, and finally, it has much better written Kanji recognition than the DS and phone. I imagine if a phone dictionary worked this well, people would use it. It's not like I carry it everywhere with me, but like flocial says, when I'm seriously studying Japanese, I prefer to have my dictionary.


You also don't need to recharge dictionary. Just a little battery to change a few times a year.


I've had a very different experience with this. One of my friends from the US was made fun of for carrying around a FlipCam there because all their phones (pre Android/Apple) could already do that and in addition, they could edit their videos right from the phone. They would constantly ask "it JUST takes video?" They saw us Americans as the ones with oversimplified one button gadgets.

The Japanese phone mfrs have had complete control of the entire platform (network, hardware and software) for too long. More than likely the dictionary mfrs and the phone mfrs were just staying out of each others' verticals. Now software (Apple,Android) is finally disrupting that and changing the market but I wouldn't agree that the Japanese thinking is around single function products. There's just a better solution now that didn't exist in the market before. Even then, I feel like culturally it's ok to use a dictionary in class but not a cell phone...

This article (http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/kenya-hara-on-japanes...) does a good job describing how "less is more" is interpreted differently in Japanese design.


Sounds like if not for its size, the Japanese would appreciate the Hole Hawg. :)


I don't think it's a preference for dedicated devices in that instance - the electronic dictionaries are just better than most cell phones for that purpose. Most people haven't switched over to smart phones, so the screens are small, and the English alphabet doesn't map all that well to a cell phone keypad (compared to a QWERTY keyboard, or Hiragana on a cell phone keypad). Newer electronic dictionaries also have a stylus and do handwriting recognition. On the other hand, the Nintendo DS electronic dictionary is pretty good, and much cheaper than an equally functional 電子辞書.


As much as i'd like to have a universal device sometimes a well-crafted, well-designed, dedicated device is hard to give up once you are used to it.

Would you rather use a TI-calc emulator on android or the actual device?


95-99% of the time, I'd actually prefer the built in android calculator, because the buttons are bigger and I'm only doing simple arithmetic. I'm perfectly willing to sacrifice the remaining times in exchange for not having to carry another thing.


Use Addi for more complex stuff: https://code.google.com/p/addi/

It is a matlab/octave emulator. It works great, even on my 2.1 android phone.


I'd rather have an HP-48G. Oh, I have two. And an HP48G emulator on my phone. RPN muscle memory runs deep.


The emulator, hands down. And that's being a long-time TI calculator user.


I am probably two orders of magnitude faster[1] on a real TI than on an emulator. The muscle memory there is deep, and doesn't translate to my phone at all.

[1]no, really


Well, if I am doing anything serious, I use Mathematica or MATLAB, so I haven't had to do anything besides basic arithmetic on my phone.


The user experience is many times better on a real TI then in an Android emulator or even in a computer. For some quick math calculations a computer or Android calculator is find. If I'm doing a lot of math problems I rather use a TI. The usability is just way better.


They wont let you into an exam with a phone.


That's an artificial restriction, which isn't a primary concern to me.


No it's not. Japanese cellphones probably have had Japanese-English dictionaries in them even before smartphones took hold here. I saw them being used to look up English words all the time.

What Japanese are attached to is the 12-key flip phone form factor. So much so that Sharp released a 12-key flip phone running Android a year or two ago. My guess is that the dictionaries fill a high-end niche that cellphones historically could not: when you need a more extensive dictionary, have to look up a lot of words or translate entire sentences, and need to type quickly. As smartphones (iPhone, Android) become dominant, I think those dictionaries will disappear.


Studying the history of Japan's consumer electronics industry is absolutely fascinating. It's an equivalent, but absolutely evolutionary different path.

The different approaches to similar problems, how different factors have put different evolutionary pressures on the industry (e.g. language) is endlessly interesting.

Better yet, now with South Korea a major electronics player, and India and China up and coming very quickly....I have a feeling it'll be possible for a serious study of the history of consumer electronics to be a valid academic area of study.


I agree that the software industry in Japan is deficient for lack of a better word in both quantity and quality. Mainly it's the result of a short-sighted bureaucracy running industry and education. Aside from the language barrier, which is formidable but manageable, Japan had all the ingredients needed to foster a thriving software industry (mainly a talented workforce schooled in science and a hardware manufacturing industry that could supply any and all the parts, at least in the 80s and early 90s).

The cultural obsession with making "stuff" or "monozukuri" is more a romantic notion nurtured by the economic slump as America made a massive comeback dominating every part of the IT field from hardware to software. Craftsman are highly regarded in Japan but great programmers see themselves as part of this tradition and peers regard them as such. It completely ignores the fact that the video-gaming industry and even anime is "soft" driven and a significant part of Japanese contemporary culture.

On the policy side there's just not enough support for entrepreneurship in general and more so for IT. Many of the first movers in the Japanese IT bubble crossed over into establishment quite quickly and the Livedoor scandal just provides government with a massive excuse to stay conservative. The fact that both Livedoor, Rakuten and SoftBank made hostile bids for media companies at one point probably did some damage as well in terms of turning traditional media against them.

Labor laws make it highly prohibitive to fire full-time workers and social benefits still tend to accrue to people who don't change companies. Of course, times are changing but policy still prevails. For any software startup in Japan hiring someone is hard because good people are conditioned to seek stability and hiring someone is risky for the startup because they are dealing with less talented people with the same employment guarantees. Although the IT industry in Japan mirrors general global trends to a degree, so there are more career changes, people are very risk averse and probably less mobile than a comparative sample from the states.

Also corporations tend to foster a false sense of homogenity which usually results in long hours and minimal incentives for performance. I've seen so many exceptional people, especially programmers, clash and ultimately burn against corporate culture. The rest go on leave for clinical depression.

In terms of education, the curriculum just plain sucks for science in general and for sciences more students flock to traditional engineering fields where the get to learn FORTRAN or COBOL and maybe play with R. Professors in Japan, even in the sciences, rarely lift a finger and many are completely inept with computers. Of course, younger professors aren't but with Japanese demographics they'll struggle to find tenure. Not to mention undergraduates don't study much compared to other countries since the entrance exam is the main event.

In terms of culture and language, Japanese allows for so much vagueness that I think it creates a serious barrier to clear and logical thinking needed for not only programming but interface design. People avoid debates of any kind and when they do occur, they quickly get emotionally heated. Also, a lot decisions for even the interface gets run by the committee or are consensus-based and that's not a good thing in general for design of any kind as you need a grand architect who knows what they're doing and can move with conviction.

I really can't do this topic justice unless I go and write a book so I don't think a short article by The Economist can address it either. Japan has a lot to offer too but those are my impressions on what's holding them back.


This reminds me of the article "Why Japan didn’t create the iPod", which adds lots of details to the same issue: http://blog.gatunka.com/2008/05/05/why-japan-didnt-create-th...

Notably, the "appliance mindset" (people own many devices which are not interacting), average japanese people not owning a PC in 2001, the popularity of gaming consoles and mobile phones.


Anyone remember the non IBM PC compatible NEC PC-98?


Ah, yes. Japan's idiosyncratic, parallel personal computer industry. My how times have changed. Strangely enough, these days when shopping in Nipponbashi I saw Dells everywhere. But outside of Dell and Apple, the big computer vendors are still Japanese or at least Asian. Also, the DIY computer market is big, and largely targeted at the same audience (gamers), but the marketing strategy is different. Since Western style FPS games are unpopular in Japan, video card and motherboard manufacturers use marketing campaigns tied in with home-grown MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XIV and the like.


It is inevitable that hardware development cost is much higher compared to software especially at chip-level, in which the fabrication cost is getting higher and higher as the process node shrinks. Even the EDA tools used to design and develop the chip already cost a bomb. So, it is not surprising that the electronics firms struggle to reach 5% profit margin...


The hard line between hardware and software is also fading in my opinion. I mean hardware is mostly also software in a sense. The difference between 'hardware' and 'software' is smaller nowadays than the difference between 'business software' and 'low-level software' I think.


>I mean hardware is mostly also software in a sense

Sure, in a theoretical sense, hardware is software frozen in silicon, sometimes even analog silicon. However, the economics of software and hardware businesses couldn't be more different, and that's the point of the article.

Furthermore, low-level software is probably to be tied to the hardware biz from an economics standpoint.


I think you are forgetting about board-level analog and RF electronics. FPGAs and digital ICs are mostly designed with hardware descriptor languages which one might call software, but analog and RF electronics remain very much in the hardware realm.


hm...




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