jng@well.sf.ca.us (James N. Gershfield) (03/28/90)
Articles have appeared in the press recently stating that John Sculley intends to make Apple Japan a one billion dollar (revenues) company by 1993. I am interested to hear what the current feeling is in Japan toward the Apple Macintosh computer. Who is using the Mac? What is it being used for? Is the Mac really growing in popularity in Japan? Please post replies to the net. However, if I receive E-mail, I will summarize and post summary to the net. Thank you very much. Jim Gershfield jng@well.sf.ca.us
cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Christopher M Mauritz) (03/28/90)
In article <16908@well.sf.ca.us> jng@well.sf.ca.us (James N. Gershfield) writes: > >Articles have appeared in the press recently stating that John >Sculley intends to make Apple Japan a one billion dollar (revenues) >company by 1993. > >I am interested to hear what the current feeling is in Japan toward >the Apple Macintosh computer. Who is using the Mac? What is it being >used for? Is the Mac really growing in popularity in Japan? > >Please post replies to the net. However, if I receive E-mail, I will >summarize and post summary to the net. > >Thank you very much. > Well, I cannot speak for Japan, but I work for a large Japanese bank on Wall St. in Manhattan. As near as I can tell, our office is equipped in much the same manner as our head office in Tokyo. The Mac is much more widely used than MessyDos machines. The execs find it much easier to use and more reliable. However, this might have something to do with the fact that all of our Macs are Mac IIcx's with internal hard drives 5mb RAM, 19 inch mono monitors and 1 laserwriter IInx for every 3 Macs. I would say that in an office of 250 people, we have about 80 Macs and about 30 PeeCee's (Compaq 386/20mhz). Besides, the macs are much more easy to network than the MS-Dos machines, and that is a very important consideration in an office environment. >Jim Gershfield >jng@well.sf.ca.us ------------------------------+--------------------------- Chris Mauritz |Where there's a BEER, cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu |there's a plan. (c)All rights reserved. | Send flames to /dev/null |Air Warrior is king! ------------------------------+---------------------------
sajima@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (Takahiro Sajima) (03/29/90)
In article <1990Mar28.154025.15315@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Christopher M Mauritz) writes: >In article <16908@well.sf.ca.us> jng@well.sf.ca.us (James N. Gershfield) writes: >> >>Articles have appeared in the press recently stating that John >>Sculley intends to make Apple Japan a one billion dollar (revenues) >>company by 1993. >> >>I am interested to hear what the current feeling is in Japan toward >>the Apple Macintosh computer. Who is using the Mac? What is it being >>used for? Is the Mac really growing in popularity in Japan? >> >Well, I cannot speak for Japan, but I work for a large Japanese bank on >Wall St. in Manhattan. As near as I can tell, our office is equipped >in much the same manner as our head office in Tokyo. The Mac is much >more widely used than MessyDos machines. The execs find it much >easier to use and more reliable. However, this might have something >to do with the fact that all of our Macs are Mac IIcx's with internal >hard drives 5mb RAM, 19 inch mono monitors and 1 laserwriter IInx >for every 3 Macs. I would say that in an office of 250 people, >we have about 80 Macs and about 30 PeeCee's (Compaq 386/20mhz). >Besides, the macs are much more easy to network than the MS-Dos machines, >and that is a very important consideration in an office environment. > In Japan, Apple Macintosh computers are sold through Canon (I think - I know that NeXT machines are sold through them). They are very VERY expensive - far more expensive than the price one would have to pay in the US. Hence, only a small minority of people use Macintoshes. (However, that doesn't necessarily mean very few people; it's all relative). As much as Chris would like to criticize MS-DOS machines, I must disagree with few of his views: (1) The mainstream personal computer in Japan is the NEC PC-98 series machines, and they run MS-DOS. (2) Macs are just as much pain to network as any other machine. My feeling is that almost all of the Macs in Japan are used by researchers in labs, but this view maybe biased since I was one of those researchers in one of those labs (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. Software Laboratories. Tokyo, Japan). The office (about 10 people) has about five or six Mac IIs with various kinds of monitors. Quite a few researchers have grown to hate the bitmapped displays of Macintosh (blurry letters). /Takahiro Sajima sajima@watsun.cc.columbia.edu ( ( ( (((( IN STEREO )))) ) ) ) Where available
james_e_gaynor@bat.cis.ohio-state.edu (03/29/90)
In article <1990Mar29.022747.7038@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> sajima@cunixd.cc.columbia.edu (Takahiro Sajima) writes: [observations about the Macintosh in Japan...] > >The office (about 10 people) has about five or six Mac IIs with various >kinds of monitors. Quite a few researchers have grown to hate the >bitmapped displays of Macintosh (blurry letters). > >/Takahiro Sajima >sajima@watsun.cc.columbia.edu They've grown the hate the bitmapped displayed of the Macintosh because of -blurry letters-??? I can't see where the Mac would have letters any "blurrier" than any other computer - in many cases I find the Mac to have a sharper display. The only thing I can think of the explain this is that perhaps your colleagues are using poor quality displays (you did say that they were using a number of different kinds). Other than that - I just don't understand that claim. -=- | Jim Gaynor -- The Ohio State University IRCC -- gaynor@cis.ohio-state.edu | | "If one is right while the other is wrong, and the other is right while the | | one is wrong, then the best thing to do is to look beyond right and wrong."| | -Chuang Tsu, "Inner Chapters: The Equality of All Things"|
hollin@adobe.COM (Ben Hollin) (03/30/90)
The Mac market in Japan is growing rapidly. I don't have any statistics, but there are many recent success stories. Apple signed a deal with a nationwide consortium of universities to supply thousands of Macs, at bargain rates. A two-page spread appeared in either MacUser or MacWorld (U.S. editions) last fall with letters (in Japanese!) to John Scully - mostly expressing a love/hate relationship with Apple products. They love the technology, but feel Apple has neglected them in terms of service and availability of new system features for KanjiTalk. There are several PostScript (TM) Kanji printers on the market, including the Apple LaserWriter NTX-J. Adobe just announced 3 new Japanese fonts (making a total of 5), and plans to ship Kanji ATM by the end of the year. Our applications products are selling well there, including localized versions of Illustrator and Streamline. The bottom line is that the Japanese Mac market is where the U.S. was 4 years ago or so. Desk top publishing is just becoming a reality. Things are starting to take off, and we expect the expansion to be exponential. Now if we could only find some Japanese-literate Mac programmers . . . (Standard disclaimer: My personal opinions, not those of Adobe.)
jiro@heights.cit.cornell.edu (03/30/90)
In article <16908@well.sf.ca.us> jng@well.sf.ca.us (James N. Gershfield) writes: > >Articles have appeared in the press recently stating that John >Sculley intends to make Apple Japan a one billion dollar (revenues) >company by 1993. > >I am interested to hear what the current feeling is in Japan toward >the Apple Macintosh computer. Who is using the Mac? What is it being >used for? Is the Mac really growing in popularity in Japan? > >Please post replies to the net. However, if I receive E-mail, I will >summarize and post summary to the net. > >Thank you very much. > >Jim Gershfield >jng@well.sf.ca.us Well, the Macintosh is a very respected computer in Japan. I worked for a while as a computer consultant to some major foreign and Japanese firm in Tokyo and the Mac was the machine of choice. Why? It was truly bilingual under KanjiTalk (the Kanji MacOS). That meant that bosses could write up documents in English, secretaries could write them one's in Japanese, they could both use the same applications, etc.. In fact, for a while the Mac had one of the most powerful Japanese word processors on the market (this was back in the days of the Mac + w/ Kanji ROMS). Also, the ability to laser print Kanji fonts has no doubt been a big plus. People use the Mac also to compose a lot of software, although the Atari ST is a big competitor (due to its MIDI ports). But since you can get a Mac+ for about Y198,000 (try STEP in Shibuya), the price difference that had kept Macs out of the mainstream is declining. All is not golden however. Canon has VERY bad service unless you are a VERY big customer. Apple Japan? Hah! That's the biggest joke I've ever heard. I don't know what Sculley is up to, but if he wants to get anything done, he better clear up the Canon/Apple Japan dichotomochy. Everytime my company tried to phone ANYONE in Apple Japan, they were "at a meeting." ;-} Canon doesn't really want to service the Macs it sells or provide service. Apple Japan doesn't know what it is doing (anyone remember Apple Japan went bankrupt/broke for about a year before reorganizing? This was the post-Apple // pre-Mac era, I think). Now that Canon is real buddy-buddy with Jobs-san and NeXT, I think its role will decline in the future. Apple Japan should use this as a good reason to get working. At present, Mac II prices are just too expensive (read 200% of US prices) if they go through Canon/Apple Japan. The prices I quoted before are street prices, private companies that trade through mail order companies in the US. An interesting anecdote that should drive the Apple America crazy. The company I referred to earlier, STEP, apparently gets its Macintoshes from American exchange or college students who get them at AUConsortium prices. I won't divulge my source, but it is common knowledge in Tokyo. (One clue to this is that all the serial numbers are filed/scaped off the Macs, another is the English manuals :-). Well, I don't want to tirade too much. - Jiro Nakamura - jiro@heights.cit.cornell.edu DISCLAIMER: I don't work for Cornell. The company I work for in Japan doesn't really care what I say.
kono@csl.sony.co.jp (Shinji Kono) (03/30/90)
In article <16908@well.sf.ca.us> , jng@well.sf.ca.us (James N. Gershfield)writes > I am interested to hear what the current feeling is in Japan toward > the Apple Macintosh computer. Who is using the Mac? What is it being > used for? Is the Mac really growing in popularity in Japan? Mac is great machine, I think. However Mac is very minor in Japan. I think this is because... 1) Mac is very expensive in Japan. (vs. NEC-PC) 2) Apple Japan has never tried drastic academic/student discount. 3) Japanese support is still poor. (SE-30's display is too small for Kanji) 4) Usually, new (and good) software does not support Japanese. 5) Mac's hardwares are slightly fragile than NEC-PC. Many Japanese people are using Japanese Word-Processor now, so there must be a big market. -------- Shinji Kono $B2OLn??<#(J Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Inc.: kono@csl.sony.co.jp