Slashdot Mirror
Software In The Land That Time Forgot
Sara Chan writes: "The Economist has an interesting story about software in a country described as 'The land that time forgot.' This country has wealth and technology to rival the USA, and over 125 million people. Yet it has a software industry that discourages creative thinking and gives no chance to entrepreneurs. Firms that specialize in custom software charge a pre-fixed amount for a system. And Microsoft has little presence there, because most software runs on the antiquated mainframes with which the software came bundled. Yes, it's Japan. (And if you're not well familiar with Japan's culture, it's also worth reading the articles now appearing in The Atlantic Monthly.)"
Firstly, as someone else already noted, video games. Some game programmers are household names within the industry, sucha as Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid) or Shigeru Miyamoto (Zelda, Mario).
I've seen a lot of Japanese-created software for the Palm Pilot too.
Or how about the TMPGEnc MPEG encoder written by Hiroyuki Hori? It's often called the best in its class.
Many corporations such as Unisys also have Japanese divisions which are run and staffed by Japanese.
In short, this isn't much of an article.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
I have a friend who has lived in Japan on and off for the past five years, and according to her it's not quite as simple as that. The successful multinational companies (Honda and Sony, for example) have a much less hierachical and seniority-oriented corporate culture - and, funnily enough, they produce funky innovative products. However, Japan's domestically-oriented companies, such as banks and retailing, live up to every bad stereotype you have of conservative, addled mandarins stifling innovation and creativity.
Go you big red fire engine!
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
the non-creative guys at Nintendo and Sony had taken the console scene by storm and were posed to give Microsoft a very hot welcome party to THEIR market.
Specifically, the non-creative guys at Nintendo had been coding classic game upon classic game for what seems to be ages now.
Also, every two years a new japanese idea spreads like fire among the world's children, their parents "cluelessness" notwhitstanding. Yes, I am talking about the Zodiac Knights, Tamagoshi, Pokemon etc.You can argue those are not primarily software, but marketing devices. I would agree they are memes, but except for the first of my examples, the others are mainly software. Very non-creative.
They printed a ridiculously long, biased hatched job called Russia Is Finished back in May to try to get everyone "familiar" with Russia's culture. Intelligent letter-writers have pointed out that it was mostly a crock.
So why would I care what they have to say about Japan?
I think I will stick to what fellow geeks without a political axe to grind tell me.
I bet they can hardly wait!
--
Poliglut
> I was working with a Japanese system programmer, and he was telling me that US-style programming (individualistic) just don't fit the mindset of Japanese people (consensus). Even when Japanese programmers are given the freedom to do it, they can't (Exceptions occurs for sure).
US-style programming tends to result in a lot of exceptions too.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
When you walk up and down the aisles at CompUSA, are you struck by the impression that the US software industry encourages creative thinking?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No hard numbers, but the new Netcraft survey (which, oddly enough,
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The /. blurb seems to have ommitted one key point with respect to the Economist article. The KEY POINT of the article is that the "big three" Japenese hardware manufacturers (NEC, Fujitsu, and Hitachi) dominated the business computing industry for years in Japan. Since these hardware companies use an older 1970s business model derived from US mainframe and supercomputer companies like IBM and Cray, software has been tied to the platform. It is not at all surprising, in this context, that PC software companies (Microsoft included) experienced sluggish sales.
Just take a look at the time history of PC sales and Microsoft sales shown in the article. They're both tightly correlated, and both skyrocketing. The main point is that MICROSOFT IS RAPIDLY BECOMING AN INCREASING PRESENCE IN JAPANESE COMPUTING. The plot shows Microsoft sales increasing six-fold in the last six years. I would hardly call that a negligable presence.
I would suggest that many of the previous posters try something new, and check out the original article, before ranting on their own little soapboxes.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
If that's true, then how is it that I was able to throw out KanjiKIT on my wife's Win95 machine? Well, Microsoft Word & Outlook 2000 work quite well with MS' integrated IME for Japanese. And IE 5 works fine, too. She needs no "third-party-hacks." Now if you want to save with Japanese filenames, that's another story. But I don't know how to do that in *NIX, either.
Please clarify.
I would have to say that the Macintosh has this down quite well (and has for some time). My brother-in-law has a fully functioning bilingual (English/Japanese) system on his (MacOS 9) PowerBook. [Hm. I wonder what Japanese filenames look like on the command line of OS X?]
Actualy, Linux has been ported to IBM mainframes, by IBM itself. The problem isn't the coding, the 'problem' if you really want to call it that is that the Mainframes simply work and work fine.
If you have a box thats handling, say, $1 million dollars worth of transactions per day, and it's been doing it for the past 20 years, why the hell would you stop? Why fix it if it aint broke?
IBM has put plenty of web-integration stuff out there for their mainframes, or you can interface them with PCs (Use tons of web-facing PCs with a Big-ol mainframe as your DB server).
Just because a hack exists dosn't mean you need to, or have any reason, to use it.
Linux is there for the mainframes for people who want it, but if you've already got a mainframe... what's the point?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Companies are tied to particular computer manufacturers and must pay for bad tailor-made software that can often be bought for a small fraction of the price off the shelf. Japan's hardware revolution offers a chance to change all this. First, though, the Japanese will have to get the software right, too.
Instead, they can be tied to a particular software manufacturer, and pay for bad rehashes of old technology that can be had for free off the Net. First, though, the Japanese will have to start changing thier desktop backgrounds, downloading e-mail viruses and sending each other useless, overly-formatted memos in proprietary formats. Then they will lead the world in IT efficiency.
(newer | glitzy) != more_efficient
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Antiquated hardware? Antiquated software? Place have stuff like this on both sides of the Pacific but to label all of Japan as "The Land That Time Forget" for technology is wrong. After all where do almost all of the driving force for video games come from? Where have almost all of the ground breaking advancements in game/console software and hardware come from? Japan! The PS2 and Gamecube are certainly not Atari 2600.
Japan is the BASF of countries. We didnt invent the tv, we made it cheaper. We didnt invent the automobile, we made it smaller and cheaper. We didnt invent the video game, we just make good ones and then dont release them in the US, to spite them for nuking us back in the day.
The difference lies within how a business should be run/managed/controlled.
This is exactly right, and japanese buisness are doing a crappy job of rewarding innovation, due to the way they run their buisneses. Theres the story of the japanese guy who invented the blue diode, the invention that makes white diodes possible, along with faster optical drives etc. His invention made the company hundreds of millions of dollars, all he got was a measly raise and no promotion. He then got offers from various US companies offering him salires 2-3x what he was getting, royalties on anything he invented, and offers to head departments at various colleges. He decided, wisely that his talents werent appreciated in japan, and immigrated. The seniority system in japan and gaurenteed job placement for life prevents raises and advancements for innovative people, thus stifling innovation as a whole. This is not good or bad, if your goal is 100% employment and job security, its very good, if you want innovation, its not such a good idea.
http://www.microsoft.com/japan/
--
Doh, hasn't anyone played that game involving Mario, Luigi, turtles, crabs, gold coins, head bumping things upside down?
:).
;). Whereas in Japan the industry insiders seem to contribute a lot more (Nintendo, Sony etc).
If someone suggested making a game like that in the US, he or she may be forced to take a urine test accompanied with nice uniformed people
How about Pacman, or the various dancing games for instance?
Just look at the Japanese game software industry and that should settle it.
As for other software - you don't need creativity to do accounting or add figures up, and you don't need some stupid paperclip no matter what Microsoft thinks.
In the US, innovations and creativity seem to come from the industry outsiders, battling in, succeeding only to be "sequeled"
Japan's entertainment and toy industry encourages a lot more innovation and creativity than the US toy industry. The US toy industry just keeps pushing what the Sumerian kids had in 4000BC. Dolls (Barbie, GI Joe), weapons, vehicles. Whereas, from Japan you get really really weird/strange/innovative stuff, and they are often pushed by the mainstream industry.
PC's: Bah, who needs 'em when you have cell phones? (Okay, that's an overstatement, but not as much as you might think.)
I'd have thought any of the Sony Vaio range would amply demonstrate that the Japanese excel at making PC's too... just that they like them small, light, portable and stylish. Notice a trend here regarding how the Japanese like their electronics?
This is ridiculous. Take a look at this very short and very incomplete list of the Free Software that Japanese programmers have written or contributed to - it's nothing to be sneezed at:
And this is just a very short and very incomplete list that I knocked up in a few minutes.
Sorry, I don't buy this article at all. Granted, the PC has never taken off in Japan in quite the same way it has elsewhere in the world, but that's the price of having an already extremely wired and hi-tech population, something of a distrust of western domination of any one market (why do you think Linux is such a huge hit over there, with the now famous retail sales figures showing TurboLinux outselling Windows?), and also the debacle that is the Japanese PC98 specification. So, yes, perhaps given its size and technological level, Japan is not as well represented in the PC software world as it could be, but to suggest from that that Japanese programmers are no good is outrageous and smacks of the American cultural arrogance that the rest of the world is sick to the back teeth of. Note also the implication that because the Japanese shy away from Microsoft software, that this makes them somehow backward. Very disturbing that this is the prevailing view of a major media outlet such as The Economist.
Oh, and as for mainframes being out of date - tell that to IBM and all its customers using z390's to consolidate servers, and whose reliability and I/O performance wipe the floor with anything the PC industry could come up with now or in the next 15 years.
You could always ask Slashdot Japan.
However, compare this to what the article is talking about in Japan. Japanese companies are still buying, on the whole, computer systems that are copies of the IBM mainframe systems. Mainframes ceased being a growth industry 25 years ago. The software written for these systems is foisted on the buyers in a way that, in the early 80's and late 70's was proved to stifle innovation in the worst possible way. This is why PC's (for better or worse) took off in the United States - they might be based on a cruddy, rickety architecture and hobbled by a couple of rather odious quasi-monopolies, but at least they allow for a great deal of flexability. The fact that Linux even exists is probably the greatest teastament to this flexability yet.
So, when compaired to IBM in the early 70's, or Hitachi, Fujitsu and NEC today, even the Dreaded Microsoft is a fantastic innovator. You and I might bemone the limp-risted nature of "innovation" that comes from Redmond, but at least there is something to bemone.
--
In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
Japan still makes the best games:
Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, ZeroWing (all your base... game). Honestly, if you play games that originated in Japan, they are incredibly creative and top notch (not to mention fun).
These are also console games, not PC games, which is probably the reason...
--
"That's one small step for man..." "STOP POKING ME!!!!"
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
It must be rather obvious to everyone that Japan has invented, created and developed many things. Just think of all the Multinational companies from Japan.
The difference lies within how a business should be run/managed/controlled. Business cultures are of course very different, but why say its worse ? (there's a negative tone in such statements and the one quoted above).
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
What, a country where Microsoft makes $1.4B a year in revenue is a country "without Microsoft?" I don't buy it. Yes, the "enterprise" market in Japan still uses mainframes more than it does here (and perhaps more than it should), but the last time I checked, Windows was the standard on the vast majority of PCs sold in Japan.
sulli
RTFJ.
Personally, I think many people confuse the difficulty of making good Japanese-language software with a lack of ambition for Japanese software. It's not the case. However, making a good Japanese user environment is *hard*. This is not roman script, folks, or anything remotely like it. It takes several third-party-hacks to get Windows useable in Japanese. BeOS ships with Japenese suport, and Linux is well on its way. It it any suprise that there is little Microsoft market there?
I don't know enough about far eastern culture to be able to suggest any changes that would have to occur in America to cause Microsoft to have to shift it's business strategy, although Microsoft has adopted the concept of a Keiretsu from Japanese corporate culture. Perhaps we need to adopt the purchasing habits of Japanese consumers...
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I was working with a Japanese system programmer, and he was telling me that US-style programming (individualistic) just don't fit the mindset of Japanese people (consensus). Even when Japanese programmers are given the freedom to do it, they can't (Exceptions occurs for sure). And that why he was here, to learn how to program alone (and he was good at it).
CPU or memories, on the other hand, requires consensus, that's one of the reason they are so good at it (Did you ever encounter a bug in a memory chip?)
Nobox: Only simple products.
...and I was amazed by two things. First, by thier technology. They have a great deal of what we would call "gagetry", lots of things will bells and whistles, cell phones with GPS and a range finder for the nearest train station, web browsers, voice recognition. And second, by thier LACK of computers. When it comes to computers, they were suprisingly behind the times. Computers were amazingly expensive (compared to the US at the time. I think what would have cost $500 in the US then would have cost over $2,000 in Japan), they were hard to use. Setting up an ISP account could take you a month or more and cost you a great deal of money. And since all calls cost per minute (this includes local calls) the internet is only for the rich or the incredibly geeky (and due to the language barrier, there are few resources for the "geeks" in Japan). What's more, people in Japan have no fear of thier gagets at all, but when it comes to computers they become as pertified as your grandmother setting up AOL for the first time. Things are going to eventually have to change in Japan, but they are still a long way off...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
It's really quite simple. All over Japan are billboards depicting the rogue software entrepreneur so eager to steal customers away from Japanese conglomerates. The villain, a light-skinned blonde man, has been given the moniker "Cats". The text of the billboard, roughly translated from Kanjii, encourages conglomerate developers to "make their time".
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"