Just a short comment on Mr. Governor's message. Research on new
technologies and industries has found that many people overestimate the
short-term (and thus bubbles occur) and underestimate the long-term effects
of new technologies and industries. for example, it took between 50 and 100
years (depending on your definition) for large benfits of mass production
technologies, electrificaiton, and the telephone to be felt in the US and
Europe (and there were telephone and electrification bubbles in the late
1800s). more recent examples include the 20-30 delay for the west to
recognize that japan had beaten them in consumer electronics (japanese
firms were the first firms to use transistors in radios and TVs in the 50s)
and the 10 year delay for japan in recognizing that the US had won the PC
and thus the computer battle. similar things can also be said about the
rest of the world being slow to recognize the importance of and US
head-start in the fixed-line internet and the European victory in GSM. the
mobile Internet will be very similar. there is a bubble in japan but it
will be hard for the west to catch up as firms participating in the
japanese mobile internet (not just japanese firms) are developing most of
the relevent technologies.
Jeff Funk
Kobe University
>
> Multi-billion dollar industry. More than 1000 companies. Many new jobs.
>
> Ummmmm.... sounds a bit like the Internet, doesn't it Gerhard? I
> personally wouldn't say the web was a "failure", but by late 1999/early
> 2000 it was certainly ready for a shakeout. Thousands of companies have
> subsequently gone bust. Thousands of folks have lost their jobs. And for
> companies such as EMC, Oracle and so on which had told investors the
> internet represented "a new multi-billion dollar industry" the truth was
> out there just waiting to make itself felt. Just look at those share
> prices and revenue streams now.=20
>
Received on Fri Dec 28 03:19:38 2001