China to Be Laptop Leader

prostoalex writes "IMS Research says that by the end of the year People Republic of China might become world's biggest laptop manufacturer. The plants will be largely owned by Taiwanese manufacturers, though. Taiwan is current #1."

Comments

Re:hmmm

[hype7]

Not to troll, but I think that a lot of laptops that will come out of china will suck, just like a lot of the other toys and electronics that come out of China. On the other hand, it probably would drive the price down enough for me to afford one in addition to my desktop. Personally, I won't be getting one of these laptops from China because I am a mac freak and never want to use any OS other than Mac OS X ever again.

This is what people used to say about Taiwan, and before Taiwan, Japan.

Now, Taiwan is responsible for producing a number of Apple's computers. They also supply memory to computer manufacturers all over the world.

Japan started out life by creating second-rate consumer goods like watches and cameras. While their watches haven't improved that much (j/k), Nikon et al produce some of the best cameras you can buy. Not that it was always like that. And what about Honda/Toyota, etc? When they first came out, those were the cars you bought when you'd just been declared bankrupt. Now, they're some of the most reliable cars you can buy; Japan pushed the just-in-time production model and numerous other innovations, and their automotive industry is one of the most vibrant in the world.

And so it will be with China. So while now you might say how crap they are, there's a US $100bn per year trade deficit between the US and China in China's favour (I think that figure is correct), and all that money will continue to go towards making China the new Japan.

-- james

Re:Interesting...

[appleLaserWriter]

China has set a goal to be a world leader in semiconductor manufacture and a competitive force in software development in the next few years. I'm sure there will be more news to come.

Language is a major roadblock for Chinese IT. Either you have to learn english or use a cumbersome encoding system to work in Mandarin. This will work as a slowing factor in software development and motivate research into new data entry methods.

Re:hmmm

[Malcontent]

"Wages will go up, and quality of goods will go up - and with it, the prices of the goods. A hole will open for another poor country to start producing the "cheap junk"."

Once the companies leave then a bust cycle will begin. There will be a prolonged period of unemployment and depression/recession. Eventually the standard of living will be pretty much where it was before. Maybe once the cambodians (or wherever the jobs went) get uppidy and demand more money the jobs might come back but more likely they will migrate to africa or someplace even more destitute.

Eventually some country will imprison a sizable minority of it's people and offer their labor for cheap to companies. This form of legalized slavery will start another chain reaction and before long a sizable chunk of the humans on this planet will be imprisoned and enslaved. People will be jailed for having one to two marijuana seeds for ten years and in prison they will work for AT&T making telemarketing calls.

Oh wait a minute that's already happening right here in the USA.
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispat ch/200 1-11-23/pols_naked3.html
http://www.prisontalk.co m/forums/archive/topic/115 05.html
http://kcd.com/goa/issues/2000/q1/Jail.ht m

I am sure these kinds of prison labor programs will be expanded hugely in the US and overseas. Imagine a couple of million slaves in china, US or africa manufacturing toys or sneakers for next to nothing. Of course the US prisons will have to degrade to the level of chinese or african prisons to compete.