How Steve Jobs 'out-Japanned' Japan

[rdowns]

An excellent article. A bit long but well worth the read. I quoted a few good paragraphs.

I urge all our resident fanboys (Mac, iPhone, Android etc.) to read it. We can all learn from it.

Link

That ability to express by omission holds a central place in Jobs's management philosophy. As he told Fortune magazine in 2008, he's as proud of the things Apple hasn't done as the things it has done. "The great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products," he said. "We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas." (Jobs sometimes says this even more bluntly: Nike CEO Mark Parker likes to recount the advice Jobs gave him shortly after Parker's promotion to the top spot: "You make some of the best products in the world -- but you also make a lot of crap. Get rid of the crappy stuff.")

Other companies fail to do things because they've overlooked potential openings or are cutting corners to save money; under Jobs, however, every spurned opportunity is a conscious, measured statement. It's why the pundits who give Apple products poor reviews for not including industry-standard components -- for instance, the iMac's lack of a floppy drive -- just aren't getting it: Apple products are as defined by what they're missing as much as by what they contain.

By way of example, Deutschman tells the story of how Sony entered the color TV marketplace, noting that in the Sixties, when color TV was going from 3% to 25% of the market, Sony was one of the few electronics companies that didn't sell a color model. "People were telling Ibuka, 'You have to come in to this market, everyone will take your market share,'" says Deutschman. "And Ibuka refused, saying, 'No, we will only do great products. We will only do high quality goods. We will only do breakthrough technology.'"

As a result, the company found itself in a precarious financial situation, losing out to its primary rivals -- until it came upon the aperture-grille technology that Sony unveiled in 1966 as the core of the Trinitron TV. A full 25% brighter than its rivals, Trinitron became the best-selling color TV for the next quarter century.

The unexpected popularity of the iPhone and iPad in a country hitherto dominated by phones with a far greater array of features and capabilities has taken many pundits by surprise. A 2009 Wired.com Gadget Lab article, "Why Japanese Hate the iPhone," even predicted that the iPhone would be a profound flop, with Japanese consumers seeing the device as outmoded technology offering insufficient support for video and multimedia messaging and a complete lack of standard (for Japan, anyway) features like a built-in TV tuner. It has instead become a game-changing hit -- selling over 5 million units and owning, as of the last quarter of 2010, over 72 percent of the country's rapidly expanding smartphone market.

 

[QuarterSwede]

I hadn't heard the Parker/Jobs or Ibuka quotes before. Good stuff. Too bad Sony no longer sticks to putting out high quality stuff. That's a shame.

 

[sysiphus]

Too bad Sony no longer sticks to putting out high quality stuff. That's a shame.

Sony has transitioned from being a high-end electronics firm to a media creation/distribution conglomerate that sells electronics on the side. With a few exceptions, their electronics are no longer top-end, and they're more interested in selling media than good hardware (compare Betamax+winning the lawsuit against the MPAA to allow home recording to the Sony BMG CD rootkit debacle, the removal of OtherOS on the PS3, etc...)

 

[kdarling]

A 2009 Wired.com Gadget Lab article, "Why Japanese Hate the iPhone," even predicted that the iPhone would be a profound flop, with Japanese consumers seeing the device as outmoded technology offering insufficient support for video and multimedia messaging and a complete lack of standard (for Japan, anyway) features like a built-in TV tuner.

It has instead become a game-changing hit -- selling over 5 million units and owning, as of the last quarter of 2010, over 72 percent of the country's rapidly expanding smartphone market.

Actually, Wired was right. The iPhone barely sold for the first ten months it was out in Japan. It only took off after it was offered for free on contract.

As for the "72 percent of the smartphone market", bear in mind that the only phones counted as smartphones for that were something like one Blackberry, one old Android phone, and one Windows Mobile phone.

 

[garybUK]

Sony has transitioned from being a high-end electronics firm to a media creation/distribution conglomerate that sells electronics on the side. With a few exceptions, their electronics are no longer top-end, and they're more interested in selling media than good hardware (compare Betamax+winning the lawsuit against the MPAA to allow home recording to the Sony BMG CD rootkit debacle, the removal of OtherOS on the PS3, etc...)

Same as Apple really. look how they've pretty much dumped the pro-users, server markets etc. All they are interested in is iToys in all the guises. At least Sony has decent laptops (Vaio Z!!)

 

[*LTD*]

At least Sony has decent laptops (Vaio Z!!)

That don't run OS X, unfortunately.

 

[garybUK]

That don't run OS X, unfortunately.

Matter of opinion, but Windows 7 Ultimate 64 on my work Laptop is as good as, if not better (in some areas) than OSX. Certainly for HD content (mkv's) & Audiophile uses (flac) etc.. I've found Windows 7 much more capable than OSX

Especially when the only real developments in OSX have been their app stores... ugh!

 

[Tilpots]

Great read. Thanks for sharing.

The end of this article points to some of the rumors surrounding Apple's future. If even half of these rumors are true, the company will be in great shape with or without Jobs, though I hope the 'ol boy isn't done just yet.

 

[notjustjay]

Sony has transitioned from being a high-end electronics firm to a media creation/distribution conglomerate that sells electronics on the side. With a few exceptions, their electronics are no longer top-end, and they're more interested in selling media than good hardware

As someone else has already pointed out, this sounds ominously familiar.

What I got from the article is that Apple is the new Sony -- Sony had its chance, they were great, but they lost focus and quickly tumbled away. Let us hope that Apple won't make the same mistakes.

 

[sysiphus]

As someone else has already pointed out, this sounds ominously familiar.

What I got from the article is that Apple is the new Sony -- Sony had its chance, they were great, but they lost focus and quickly tumbled away. Let us hope that Apple won't make the same mistakes.

Indeed. For the moment, I'm afraid I've already moved on from Apple gear--their hardware specs are frequently too costly/not competitive as compared to the competition, and "sealed" hardware that allows for little to no tinkering/home repairs is unappealing. Granted, nobody gives out schematics like Woz did for Apple in the early days, but at least with my Thinkpad, I can get the hardware maintenence manual free, and the whole thing can be disassembled with a Phillips-head screwdriver. Windows 7 is good enough that OSX doesn't present large material advantages to the average consumer* (unlike the comparison against XP/Vista (once OSX hit Panther, at least), so Apple needs to have some compelling hardware to maintain interest. I'm afraid calling things "magic" and putting them in a shiny metal case isn't going to do it.

*(For me, a dual-boot of Fedora 14 for daily use plus Win7 for games etc is practical, pleasant, and doesn't leave me missing OSX a bit)