なぜ日本は大事か: iPadマニア、クラウド・コンピューティング、ソーシャル・インテリジェンス

I’ve been living in Japan for the past three weeks and couldn’t miss the madness around the introduction of the iPad here. I couldn’t believe the demand for this new “magical” computer. After all, this is the country that developed and built some of the world’s most popular PCs―and now the iPad, which was designed somewhere else, is revered. It’s bowed to. (Reportedly, about half of Japanese business and technology magazines are featuring the iPad on their covers.) I expect that out of the 10 million iPads sold this year, at least 500,000 to one million will be sold in Japan.

When you get an iPad, the new iPhone 4, or iPod you can’t miss seeing “designed by Apple in California”―the tagline that has generated heat from critics who get upset because the device is assembled in China. But what most people don’t recognize is that the parts are made all over the world, with some of the most important components being produced in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Take the iPod Nano. The flash memory is made by Toshiba, the Li-Ion battery is made by Sanyo and Sony, and the color LCD is made by Sharp, Toshiba, and Matsushita―making the total of the Japanese share in terms of cost 81%. The reality is the iPod is made possible by some of the most important technology in the world―and a lot of it is from Japan. Even 10% of the iPad comes from Japan (the rest is made by Taiwanese and Korean manufacturers). Japan is one of the countries doing some of the most exciting research and development in the most complex components, which is what drives the most compelling products.
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