Japan Inc. Rethinks Its Semi Strategy
Tough Economic Times Force Changes at Equipment Companies TOKYO — It is evident here at Semicon that Japan’s continued economic woes are changing the way Japanese equipment companies do business. Even in the midst of a lengthy recession, executives and analysts cling to evidence of a recovery for the latter quarters of 2002. Yet, even if this takes place, the days of Japan Inc. and its us vs. them mentality are over, and the Japanese readily acknowledge and accept this. Perhaps the most visible aspect of this phenomenon is Canon Inc.’s embrace of two-year-old Austin metrology...
Read MoreCrossing the Cultural Divide, Part 2
Editor’s Note: this is the second part of a two-part series. Here is the first part of Crossing the Cultural Divide. Japanese Overcoming Nationalism on Both Sides of Pacific Ocean TOKYO — As the semiconductor industry helps the world become a smaller place, it has suffered the growing pains of the very changes it helped foment. Those growing pains involve transitions that haven’t always been easy for companies on either side of the Pacific. Nevertheless, the United States and Japan, two of the world’s economic powerhouses, have each managed to learn from the other as...
Read MoreCrossing the Cultural Divide, Part 1
Editor’s Note: this is the first part of a two-part series. Here is the second part of Cross the Cultural Divide. For Japan, Penetrating U.S. and Global Markets Means Making Changes TOKYO — The struggle for domestic corporations in any country to become global means more than just selling tools or other products outside their national borders. Often it means a clash of cultures that forces a company to rethink the way it does business, adopting different, if not outright foreign, means of getting things done in order to compete internationally. Nowhere is this more evident than...
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Jeff Chappell: journalism nerd; web geek. That's the short story. Want the longer one?