Weaving Web Dreams

Positive Economic Indicators

Overall Global 2002 Index change: +2.1%
Gains for the 17th consecutive year

2002 Standings by Country:

1- United States +1.4%
2- Mainland China +4.7%
3- Germany -0.5%
4- Brazil -0.5%
5- Russia +5.0%
6- Japan -2.6%

So, what is this index?

Beer-lovers set new record -- hic

Global beer consumption in 2002 rose 2.1 percent over the previous year to 141.56 million kiloliters, for the 17th straight yearly increase....

The Japan Times Online

Good Signs of Economic Recovery

Chip firms lose holidays to demand

Several major Japanese microchip makers have told staff to give up their New Year holidays to meet a surge in demand resulting from spirited sales of digital home appliances, according to company officials. Toshiba Corp., NEC Electronics Corp., Fujitsu Ltd., Sony Corp., Elpida Memory Inc. and Renesas Technology Corp. are asking staff to give up part or all of their time off to meet the increased demand for such goods as DVD recorders, digital cameras and cell phones.

The Japan Times Online

Who's on First?

From an abstract, intellectual perspective, we all seem to accept the fact that we are operating in a truly 'Global Economy'. Still, every once in a while, a story hits the press that really emphasizes the global aspects of today's business environment.

For example, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is reported to be suing (a very American business tactic) Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), one of China's top chip makers. To make it even more interesting, and more confusing, SMIC is registered in the Cayman Islands, but has its headquarters in Shanghai.

So, where did they file the suit? The U.S. District Court of Northern California, of course!

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chip maker, has filed a lawsuit that alleges one of China's top chip makers infringed on its patents and misappropriated trade secrets, according to a statement released Monday.

The suit claims that SMIC has hired more than 100 former TSMC employees and has asked some of them to provide SMIC with TSMC trade secrets. In addition, it alleges that SMIC asked a TSMC manager to obtain information related to TSMC's chip-making process technology and pass it along to SMIC.

TSMC lawsuit alleges China chip maker stole trade secrets - Computerworld

First Flight

Last week my wife and I flew from Japan to Chicago, to Texas, to Nevada, to Los Angeles, and finally back to Japan. We did it in relative comfort, with flight attendants, lots of water to drink, and reasonably good food to eat. Other than the boredom involved in international travel, the trip was very enjoyable. It's hard to believe that it's only been one hundred years since man first took to the sky under power.

My grandfather and grandmother were born in the 1880's, and had just started the earliest stages of their adult life when the Wright brothers flew the Kitty Hawk. When he went to Europe in the service during WWI, the entire trip was made by ocean liner. I have some photo negatives in storage showing my grandfather standing next to one of the first government mail planes.

How quickly things change. Two generations and the whole world has changed, and keeps on changing.

First Flight

Fair's Fair - or is it?Open Windows Source Code in China and Japan - but not the U.S. and Europe?

The Chinese Government threatened to ban Microsoft from China, and soon afterwards Microsoft suddenly had a change of heart and announced that they would be opening Windows source code to Chinese researchers. Now it turns out they are doing the same thing for Japanese researchers. Perhaps it's time for some of the States that have been chasing Microsoft in the courts to shift their strategy and start using pure economic leverage following the Asian examples.

Microsoft to open Windows source code to researchers

Friday, December 19, 2003 at 03:23 JST
TOKYO - Microsoft Co said Thursday it will make the source code for its Windows operating systems open to researchers involved in an Internet project involving six Japanese universities. It will be the first time that the Japanese unit of U.S. software giant Microsoft Corp has made the source code available to Japanese universities. (Kyodo News)

Microsoft to open Windows source code to researchers

RFID Starts to Ramp

"United Parcel Service Inc. is working with supply chain customers to help them and it meet plans by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the Defense Department to require passive RFID tags on all pallets and cases by January 2005..."

"American Express Co. has seen an increase in merchant and customer use of its RFID-based ExpressPay pilot program at more than 350 fast-food outlets and gas stations in Phoenix..."

"UPS has little choice but to incorporate RFID into its supply chain business, since that is a requirement for anyone who does business with Wal-Mart, the Pentagon and their top 100 suppliers..."

UPS ramps up supply chain RFID to meet Wal-Mart, Defense plans - Computerworld

So, why all the pressure to quickly implement RFID? Sure it will probably provide significant savings in terms of package handling, inventory and tracking, but is that enough by itself to account for all the urgency?

It turns out that there may be another significant payoff that the retail RFID proponents like Wal-Mart haven't been very vocal about. They expect that by being able to track products not only in the supply chain, but also within the retail stores themselves, the shrinkage and theft by employees and customers will be almost completely eliminated. That savings alone is more than enough to quickly pay off all the costs involved in implementing the systems.

Apples, Oranges, and Semiconductors

If you take a look at many of the common stock market indices you get the impression that market sectors tend to move in sync. Companies in the same broad industry sector are lumped together, and the results from a few of the leading companies are combined and adjusted to produce an industry index that is supposed to give some general feel for whether that sector is in or out of favor. The general investing public then tends to assume that if a particular index is moving up, then the related sector stocks are in favor and are good candidates for investment.

Unfortunately, life is never that simple and straight forward. Most of the industry sectors include a sort of miniature supply chain where some companies in the sector can be trending down while other companies in the very same sector are trending up dramatically. One interesting example is the semiconductor industry. People tend to view the whole industry as if it was one monolythic entity. The typical semiconductor development cycle is typically measured in terms of years, rather than quarters, and involves the cooperation and close linkage of up to sixty different suppliers. The front end of the process involves extensive investment in research and development, while the back end of the process is primarily manufacturing, distribution, and logistics centric. This results in cyclic business performance for companies within this sector. As a result, some of the 'semiconductor' companies, like those focused on electronic design automation (EDA) are going through a down cycle at the same time that many of the semiconductor chip and process equipment companies seem to be booming.

EDA industry tool sales decline in third quarter
Posted : 22 Dec 2003
EDA tool revenues declined in every major category during the third quarter compared to the same period a year ago. Still, the EDA industry managed to eke out 1 percent sequential growth thanks largely to the inclusion of new intellectual property companies in the report, according to the latest data from the EDA Consortium's Market Statistics Services (MSS).

EDA kept its growth streak alive, thanks largely to the addition of new semiconductor IP companies that did not report revenues to MSS in Q3, 2002. With the addition of two companies - Virage Logic and inSilicon - MSS reported Q3 of 2003 SIP revenues were $53 million, a 68 percent increase over last year's Q3. EDA overall numbers in Q3 were also helped by the first uptick in many quarters in design services, which grew to $63 million, a 3.8 percent increase over Q3, 2002.

EDA industry tool sales decline in third quarter

At Odds With Each Other?

SEMICONDUCTOR: Govt to Revamp Public/Private Chip Projects for Quick Standardization
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun

December 6, 2003 (TOKYO) -- The spread of cell phones and digital cameras is producing a business climate favorable to the domestic semiconductor industry. Trying not to miss this opportunity, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) is moving to overhaul public/private research and development projects for next-generation microchip technologies and use R&D resources more effectively. But with difference surfacing between the government and industry on the question of standardizing advanced technology, the ministry's plans are unlikely to proceed smoothly enough to revive Japan's status as the leading producer of semiconductors.

The basic presupposition operating here seems to be that standardization is a good thing. While most people wouldn't argue with that, it often turns out not to be the case. Optimization and effective use of resources are often the worst possible management themes during the initial tsunami like stages of any technology wave.

"To promote R&D activities more efficiently, the government decided to redefine the role of each project more clearly. By doing so, it aimed to develop a standard production format immediately and prompt participating firms to shift their focus to R&D efforts in their respective areas of strength, such as chip circuit design, from those for manufacturing technology. It reckoned that lessening the burden of research on manufacturing technology would help them reduce annual R&D costs by about 10 billion yen per company, enabling them to increase their profit margins."

Standardization promotes sameness. It puts everyone on the same level playing field. It also demands a level of cooperation and coordination, and ties up critical resources. Even more importantly, it requires compromise. Companies have to be willing to give up a particular initiative that might give them some competitive advantage in order to achieve the group goal of standardization. When they are competiting on the world stage against major opponents that aren't weighed down by the same restrictions it puts them at a distinct disadvantage.

"However, the planned overhaul of government/business projects has not proceeded smoothly mainly because participating firms have failed to move in step with each other. Since higher added value usually must be incorporated into sophisticated chips, design and production work are inseparable."

Companies have "... failed to move in step with each other..." because they don't perceive it to be in their own best interests. There are many cases where companies have formed alliances, joint ventures, and even joint R&D projects. Companies entered into those relationships because they held common goals and objectives. No government intervention or direction was required.

SEMICONDUCTOR: Govt to Revamp Public/Private Chip Projects for Quick Standardization

I do not like green eggs and ham...

Seuss mania continues. Hits on my "favorite quotes" weblog are still climbing. Without even trying, or even submitting that site to any of the search engines, it's popularity has already reached the point that it appears in the first 10 results for a Google search on "Dr. Seuss quotes." While the majority of the hits come from searches on Google's US website, there are lots of other hits coming from England, Germany, Singapore, Denmark, France, and Russia. Of course, in a few weeks the interest in Dr. Seuss will subside and hits on my weblog will drop off. But for now it's fun to watch and to check out the search queries that people come up with.


So, what's my own favorite quote from the good doctor? It's actually a short poem:

How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn
How did it get so late so soon?

And my favorite Dr. Seuss website?

ESeuss

I'm sure that Dr. S. would make some funny little joke or poem about the little baby "eSeuss" - but I'll try to use my better judgement for once, and not follow him down that particular path.

By Popular Request

For years I have been sending a regular selection of my favorite quotes to friends and contacts all over the world. I try my best to send a quote every day, but inspite of my best intentions, I end up skipping a day or two from time to time. It doesn't take much time, usually only a few minutes. I have a broad selection of bookmarked internet websites to draw from, plus the three to five books I'm in the process of reading at any particular point in time.

Recently I decided to start keeping track of the quotes that I had sent, so I created a quote weblog (http://isobe.typepad.com/quotes) and setup my email alias so that it automatically posts each quote to the site when I send them out. It seemed like the path of least resistance at the time, and works well. I setup the weblog so that it was open to the public, but didn't do anything to promote it. I wasn't really looking to drive traffic to it since it was mainly just a log, a way of organizing and remembering what I sent to the quote alias.

Since I didn't block access the big search engines on the internet - Google, Yahoo, MSN - eventually sent their webspiders over to have a look, and I started to get a few hits a day from people looking for quotes. Then suddenly, about a week or so ago, the hits on the site really took off. The daily number of hits doubled, then doubled again, then doubled again...

So, what happened? It turns out that I'm a big Dr. Seuss fan. I've always loved his books, and even have a copy of his first movie - "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T" which was filmed long before Jim Carrey was even born. So, it was very natural for me to have a quote from the good Dr. in my quote collection. Then when the latest Dr. Seuss movie - "The Cat in the Hat" hit the screens apparently lots of people went to their keyboards and searched the internet for his quotes....

Now You See It, Now You Don't

Toshiba to release erasable printing ink for reuse of paper

TOKYO - Toshiba Corp said Tuesday it will put on the domestic market a decolorable printing ink that is rendered invisible by heat treatment. The ink allows "companies to reuse paper, to cut office waste and to reduce business costs," Toshiba said in a press release.

(Kyodo News)

Interesting approach. A lot of companies are already recycling printer paper by turning it over and printing on the backside. On the face of it, this sounds like a reasonable solution in much the same way that we used to collect office paper and make note pads from it.

It does create additional problems though. I've often thought that a document was printed double-sided only to realize that the printing on the back side of the pages was from some other document that had been recycled. There are also significant issues with paper recycled in this fashion causing paper jams in the copy machine.

Toshiba's choice of the term 'decolorable' is intriquing. It implies that the ink or toner actually remains in place on the paper, you just can't see it. Application of heat apparently causes the ink pigments to fade to the point that they are invisible to the human eye. I suppose, if someone wanted to, you could recover the 'invisible' information using a UV light source or some other optical or chemical approach. A wanna-be spy could print out confidential documents, then decolor them, and walk out with apparently blank paper, then recover the information later. So much for controlling confidential data and trade secrets...

From a pure economic perspective, if you have to buy additional equipment to heat treat the paper, and you use more of the employee's time to manage the recycling process, then how long to you have to wait to reach the break even point?

Ultimately the solution is to eliminate the use of paper all together. That takes time, much longer than anyone ever expected, primarily because people don't like to change deeply engrained habits. Yet, it is happening. Surface mail statistics are dropping, the volume of printed catalogs is dropping, photo developing and printing shops are finding that their business is evaporating.

Solutions like decolorable ink seem to address a problem in much the same way that the photo shops have decreased the time it takes them to get your photos in your hand. It used to take days, then we saw 1 hour photo processing in the malls. Now you can have it done in a half an hour. Unfortunately, the 30 minute improvement isn't going to stop people from moving away from film to digital imaging. Decolorable ink appears to be a stop-gap solution on the road to the almost total elimination of paper as we know it.

UK police stand trial on Ginger scooters

"UK police officers have been trialling the Segway Human Transporter this week as they look at the possibility of using the space-aged scooters to patrol the streets of Britain.
Policemen riding the SHT were on display on the streets of Blackpool this week - much to the delight of passers by - where the Police Federation was hosting its annual conference.

PC Neil Parsons one of the officers trialling the scooters, told Ananova: "I expect people would probably take the Mickey out of us to start with but I'm sure as they got used to it they would see it as an everyday"

silicon.com - UK police stand trial on Ginger scooters