Day by day, the catastrophe by the quake and tsunami in Japan has been revealed. Whenever I see news on a TV and in a newspaper, I'm disappointed, but I'm relieved by good stories at the same time. I really hope that its situations will be getting better.
The New York Times has uploaded interesting photos. Check them out!!
The top of that photos is of Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant I'm most concerned about now. Obviously, the radiation leak crisis is so serious. As long as I listened to comments by Mr. Goto, the former Toshiba Nuclear Plant Designer, it's already worse than the Three Mile Island accident. We should pay attention to what's going on the plants because radiation could have a bad affect on us not only directly but also through food chains for a long time. Hope quick recovery!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Take a Break
He is amazing!! How hilarious he is !!
He, a 3 years old kid, is one of the greatest conductors I've ever seen. He knows the music, 4th movement of Beethoven Symphony 5th. Especially, the end is my favorite! Don't miss it!!
And, if you need more laughing, visit Funny or Die -- there is also an interview with its founders on @KatieCouric.
"Laugher is the best medicine."
He, a 3 years old kid, is one of the greatest conductors I've ever seen. He knows the music, 4th movement of Beethoven Symphony 5th. Especially, the end is my favorite! Don't miss it!!
And, if you need more laughing, visit Funny or Die -- there is also an interview with its founders on @KatieCouric.
"Laugher is the best medicine."
8.8 Earthquake Hit in Japan
Yesterday 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit in the eastern area of Japan with huge Tsunami. We are able to get information about Japanese situations from a Japanese Live TV program.
Hope the earthquake victims are safe and get a safe place! And, I offer my condolences to the families of those who were killed.
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| Photo by The Time |
Hope the earthquake victims are safe and get a safe place! And, I offer my condolences to the families of those who were killed.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Just a Memo
I guess that the hard disk drive (HDD) market is not familiar to many people. The bottom of the figure shows us an example of the Kryder's law, which is one of similar laws of Moore's law -- a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware. Anyway, I'd like to think about the HDD industry through a current issue.
Western Digital (WD) and Hitachi announced on March 7, 2011 that WD will acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) for approximately $4.3 billion, according to an article by Venture Beat and a press release by WD.
This news gives a significant impact on the HDD industry. To begin with, the leader of the industry is Seagate, which has occupied about 41% of the market share, according to Smart HDD. And, WD is the second at approximately 23%, and the third is Samsung at approximately 16%. Hitachi GST has held about 8% of the market share. As a result of the acquisition by WD, WD will be closer Seagate's market share (simply, market share of WD and Hitachi GST totals about 31%.). Additionally, as an interesting thing, Seagate is favoring heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), while Hitachi GST favors patterned media (DTR or PBM) -- both have been known as a new technology. As long as I read a report of the HDD industry by Tom Coughlin and Ed Grochowski, it would be happened a format war between HAMR and DTR/PBM, such as the format war between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, and so on -- aka, a de facto standard. Therefore, competition between WD and Seagate will be harder, instead of the previous competition among to five companies; Seagate, WD, Samsung, Hitachi GST, and Toshiba.
It also implies another thing, which Samsung would take action like acquiring a HDD company or constructing a new factory to enhance their capacity of producing. It is because Samsung will keep away from the top two companies; Seagate and WD.
Thus, what WD is going to buy Hitachi GST is a big deal for the HDD market. How the market will be changed is interesting for me as a consequence of the acquisition.
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| Figure: Hard Drive Capacity Over Time by the Wikipedia |
Western Digital (WD) and Hitachi announced on March 7, 2011 that WD will acquire Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) for approximately $4.3 billion, according to an article by Venture Beat and a press release by WD.
This news gives a significant impact on the HDD industry. To begin with, the leader of the industry is Seagate, which has occupied about 41% of the market share, according to Smart HDD. And, WD is the second at approximately 23%, and the third is Samsung at approximately 16%. Hitachi GST has held about 8% of the market share. As a result of the acquisition by WD, WD will be closer Seagate's market share (simply, market share of WD and Hitachi GST totals about 31%.). Additionally, as an interesting thing, Seagate is favoring heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), while Hitachi GST favors patterned media (DTR or PBM) -- both have been known as a new technology. As long as I read a report of the HDD industry by Tom Coughlin and Ed Grochowski, it would be happened a format war between HAMR and DTR/PBM, such as the format war between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, and so on -- aka, a de facto standard. Therefore, competition between WD and Seagate will be harder, instead of the previous competition among to five companies; Seagate, WD, Samsung, Hitachi GST, and Toshiba.
It also implies another thing, which Samsung would take action like acquiring a HDD company or constructing a new factory to enhance their capacity of producing. It is because Samsung will keep away from the top two companies; Seagate and WD.
Thus, what WD is going to buy Hitachi GST is a big deal for the HDD market. How the market will be changed is interesting for me as a consequence of the acquisition.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Recently some articles on the TechFlash have introduced Microsoft's cutting-edge technologies. Each technology is cool and, needless to say, is expected to launch as up-and-coming products (visit for more other videos: Todd Bishop's Microsoft blog. However, stories of businesses by stunning technologies aren't generally in progress, and reach the happy end. There are some reasons why brilliant technologies don't promise to be success and to be accepted by consumers.
For instance, an electric car was already invented in the mid-19th century, and seemed to get legitimacy by consumers between 1890s and 1900s. But, the history was different. In fact, electric vehicles were defeated by gasoline cars as a result of competition regarding more popularity (A story of why people changed from horses to cars as a transportation by NOVA is interesting. If you are interested in it, click on THIS.). Since then electric cars have waited for a century to get the tipping point. They would seem to build status instead of gasoline cars within a few decades.
Why are technologies so difficult or taken much time to be accepted by consumers? Cameras, TVs, Computers, the Internet, Google, Facebook, Smartphones, and so on look like easy to diffuse markets. But, each had different difficulty in the way to accomplish the tipping point (btw, Malcolm Gladwell is actually my favorite author.). As far as I know, lots of books and theories tell us how to break the wall in order to get citizenship in markets (As references from a point of view of marketing and management, Blue Occean Strategy, The Innovator's Dilemma, Crossing the Chasm, et cetera.).
Here, from my point of view, I would like to make a comment. Obviously, some of technologies like the above video are too daring. They are hard and difficult for customers to figure out, and they are even far away from and beyond their life style. Thus, a problem for the hyper cutting-edge technologies is how to sell products with such technologies. In other words, it is a marketing problem. A good example is the Apple Inc.. iPhone is one of the great gadget and at the same time a blockbuster. Also, Mac series, despite having maniac functions, have contributed to build and acknowledge the Apple brand by consumers. A key for diffusion is that it is recognized as cool and stylish not like gizmo. On other hand, PlayStation and Xperia by Sony -- especially, PlayStation 3 and Xperia TM PLAY -- is too having functions and qualities, such as too beautiful screens and sounds, too much capacity to play game and use cellphone, and so on. Apparently, the target customers are not everybody but a part (and, actually I don't know how much they are sold, so this opinion is not strong and needed more information, though).
As long as I saw the videos by Microsoft, they are trying to promote their technologies with their familiar products like Xbox360 and Kinect. I think this is a good way. However, Microsoft should pay attention not to be caught a competency trap (aka an innovator dilemma), as examples for it; actually Sony's PlayStation 3 and more likely film cameras (More in detail: Organizational Learning, or The Innovator's Dilemma). They always have to stare at customers in order to avoid happening such situation (Unfortunately, Microsoft is already called as 20 centuries company). At the same time, we consumers have to catch up with their cutting-edge technologies, too!!
For instance, an electric car was already invented in the mid-19th century, and seemed to get legitimacy by consumers between 1890s and 1900s. But, the history was different. In fact, electric vehicles were defeated by gasoline cars as a result of competition regarding more popularity (A story of why people changed from horses to cars as a transportation by NOVA is interesting. If you are interested in it, click on THIS.). Since then electric cars have waited for a century to get the tipping point. They would seem to build status instead of gasoline cars within a few decades.
Why are technologies so difficult or taken much time to be accepted by consumers? Cameras, TVs, Computers, the Internet, Google, Facebook, Smartphones, and so on look like easy to diffuse markets. But, each had different difficulty in the way to accomplish the tipping point (btw, Malcolm Gladwell is actually my favorite author.). As far as I know, lots of books and theories tell us how to break the wall in order to get citizenship in markets (As references from a point of view of marketing and management, Blue Occean Strategy, The Innovator's Dilemma, Crossing the Chasm, et cetera.).
Here, from my point of view, I would like to make a comment. Obviously, some of technologies like the above video are too daring. They are hard and difficult for customers to figure out, and they are even far away from and beyond their life style. Thus, a problem for the hyper cutting-edge technologies is how to sell products with such technologies. In other words, it is a marketing problem. A good example is the Apple Inc.. iPhone is one of the great gadget and at the same time a blockbuster. Also, Mac series, despite having maniac functions, have contributed to build and acknowledge the Apple brand by consumers. A key for diffusion is that it is recognized as cool and stylish not like gizmo. On other hand, PlayStation and Xperia by Sony -- especially, PlayStation 3 and Xperia TM PLAY -- is too having functions and qualities, such as too beautiful screens and sounds, too much capacity to play game and use cellphone, and so on. Apparently, the target customers are not everybody but a part (and, actually I don't know how much they are sold, so this opinion is not strong and needed more information, though).
As long as I saw the videos by Microsoft, they are trying to promote their technologies with their familiar products like Xbox360 and Kinect. I think this is a good way. However, Microsoft should pay attention not to be caught a competency trap (aka an innovator dilemma), as examples for it; actually Sony's PlayStation 3 and more likely film cameras (More in detail: Organizational Learning, or The Innovator's Dilemma). They always have to stare at customers in order to avoid happening such situation (Unfortunately, Microsoft is already called as 20 centuries company). At the same time, we consumers have to catch up with their cutting-edge technologies, too!!
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