No Apology

One of the virtues (and one of the burdens) of Japanese society is the extreme emphasis placed on loyalty. Loyalty to the country, to one’s ancestors, sometimes even above right and wrong. It is this loyalty that allows the Japanese prime minister to occasionally lay flowers on Prime Minister Tojo’s grave even though he was hanged as a war criminal. It is also this loyalty that prevents Japan from expressing remorse at its actions prior to and during WWII. Japan, as a country pays a heavy price for this and Japanese multinational companies pay this price as well.

TV set sales are down precipitously in Japan because of the aftermath of the Tsunami, the expiring of domestic energy tax credits for TV set replacement, the general slowdown in the economies of Japan and the rest of the world. The one bright spot in the market has been TV set sales in China. However, due to friction between Japan and China over Japan’s actions during a war that ended almost 65 years ago, that market is largely lost to Japanese TV set makers. No apology.

In the recent US presidential election, sitting President Barack Obama defeated his challenger Mitt Romney. One issue that was frequently brought up in the campaign was the president’s supposed “apology tour” shortly after assuming the office. Mr. Romney also titled his autobiography, “No Apology". Transcripts show that although the president mentioned that the US has not always behaved as it should, he never actually apologized for anything the US has done. Though it would certainly cost him politically, perhaps he should. The US has not always behaved as it should and conveying some humility and regret would be a good thing.

Mr. Obama’s reelection was greeted favorably around the world. Although the election was close here, polls taken oversees, of non-US people, showed virtually no support for Mr. Romney and the “no apologies” approach. Although there is some friction between the US and China, there will be no US-China trade war starting on inauguration day as Mr. Romney had promised.

Hello Computer: Will Non-touch Screens go Extinct?

In one of the earlier Star Trek movies, the crew travels back in time to the then current era and has to interact with the computers of the day. Scotty addresses the computer by talking to it. When presented with the mouse, he talks into the mouse. Although seeming not familiar with the mouse Scotty is quite facile with the keyboard. He never attempts to touch the screen nor does the desktop have anything like a touchpad.

Although voice and gesture is growing, today it is touch that commands attention. In the early days of color LCD, Apple was one of the last notebook makers to go to color. They lost share and later in one of those "Crystal Cycle" events when there were shortages of notebook screens, Apple was down the list when it came to LCD supplier shipments. Leading the charge in touch, the company secured adequate supplies for all of its products in advance of the rest of the industry. Now it seems it's everyone else's turn to struggle for supply.

Intel is predicting that a majority of Ultrabooks will have touchpanels in 2013. So the question is do the ones that don't, don't have them due to designer's choice or lack of supply. Further, as interacting with the screen becomes "normal" will non-touch screens still have a place on devices meant for close proximity human interaction.

Please voice your opinion in the survey at the bottom. Please also feel free to leave your comments.

Cross Platform Portability and the Spanish Armada

In an earlier posting, I argued that video platforms were like battleships, that as there was some combination of gun size and armor that made senses for a naval platform, there was some combination of screen size and computing power that made sense for a video platform. Further, as most unmatched naval platforms (the Graff Spee being an example) were failures; video platforms that had too big or too little screen size were not going to be successful. That equation has been somewhat upended by ever increasing screen resolution. However, as resolutions reach human visual limits, I think a new equilibrium is established. The image above is from History.net.

A new issue comes to fore that also has something of a naval analogy, that is screen aspect ratio. Apple recently modified the aspect ratio of the iPhone going to a 16:9 for the iPhone 5 form a previously more square format. The decision was motivated by a desire for a larger but not wider screen to retain its one hand use capability. 16:9 being the TV format is fortunate circumstances for "TV Everywhere" but most movies are, in fact, made in wider aspect ratios and cut down for TV. So, there is no guarantee, that future product might have even more elongated aspect ratios. Additionally, as new platforms develop (wearables, new forms of tablet notebook and TV) a diversity of aspect ratios might proliferate.

Currently content is supported by two complementary business models: purchased content and ad supported. The effect of differing aspect ratios differs greatly between the two models. In the purchased content world, as long as video content can be trimmed, or letterboxed with reasonable screen utilization, all is fine. In the ad supported world, with ads being placed in specific locations on the periphery of the screen,the actual layout of the screen is paramount if you are going to establish or maintain a multi-platform strategy. Maintaining any ad supported strategy gets more difficult in smaller and smaller screens as type sizes diminish into the unrecognizable. The art of placing ads on the periphery of the main content is one of the vexing issues for Facebook as it attempts to become more of a mobile app. But as I noted, the applicability of the ad supported model diminishes with smaller screen size and with uncertain aspect ratios. In the late 1580's, there was another multi-platform strategy that went down to defeat because of physical dimensions. The Spanish Armada was assembled with a core of actual Spanish warships and a variety of other ships that were mostly armed merchants. They all carried cannons, but the cannons were of different sizes and it seems that provisioning each ship with the right size munitions was an issue that the Spanish dealt with poorly. Many of the ships were unable to fire on their English opposition. The Spanish multi-platform strategy was a failure before it even left port.

TV makers have recently begun experimenting with "Cinema Wide" 23:9 aspect ratios to better accommodate cinematic content. New, "wearable computing" platforms are being developed, smart phone and tablet aspect ratios are the OEM's choice. Again, this fits well with a purchased content business model but not with ad supported content.

After The Storm

And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up

Opening lyrics to "After the Storm", by Mumford & Sons

In the February 2009 edition of “LCD TV Matters” I published an article forecasting a quick turnaround in the US TV set sales while the economy was still in free fall and shortages by 2010. The economy did recover somewhat and there were shortages for a time in 2010, but the recovery stalled and it continued to feel like we were in a recession in spite of a growing GDP. The reason for the forecast was simple. TV set sales, while certainly not recession proof; tend to be very steady over the long term. In a recession, set sales actually accelerate during the initial phases then plummet as the recession takes hold. However, these sales are not really lost, just postponed per the model developed by Jeff Johnson when he was at Philips. Long term set sales depend on things like interest rates and household growth. There can also be exogenous events such as the introduction of the VCR and the transition to HDTV that spur additional sales beyond that.

In the October 2012 edition of “High Resolution” I stick my neck out again. The article was actually written during the summer forecasting a bottom for TV set sales in Q2 of 2012. The reasons for the new forecast were largely as before even though the circumstances of “The Great Recession” were unique in the life of the TV industry. Housing prices had turned around and household growth was resuming. Other consumer durables, particularly auto sales were returning to per-recession levels driven by pent up demand. My reasoning is that many purchases were postponed during the recession. An aging automobile can be repaired rather than replaced but only for so long before it becomes uneconomic. New TV sets are usually purchased to update rather than replace a broken one, so a TV replacement would be further down the consumer’s priority list; but the fact that consumers are back to replacing some durable goods at per-recession levels means that the time is not far off for TV.

Apple was on a roll during the recession and has accumulated over $100 Billion in cash, so not all was bleak for consumer electronics. Today we learn that Samsung has done stunningly well as well and the good news is extending back to the display makers. LGD is profitable again. The US election is days away, the “Fiscal Cliff” with mandatory massive budget cuts has to be faced and there is still the possibility of a default on European sovereign debt. However, things are not nearly as threatening as they were and some are looking forward to 2013 rather than just planning how to survive.