(keitai-l) Re: failure, success, strand consulting and imode

From: Funk <funk_at_rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp>
Date: 12/28/01
Message-Id: <4.1-J.20011228100307.014f9950@mail.rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp>
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