NewsForge: Linux and the Market’s Big Geographic Change

“Japan’s shift of emphasis is instructive. During the ’80s and
’90s, Japan’s superior manufacturing skills helped it contend with
the United States for dominance in the personal computer
marketplace. The country’s once formidable Ministry of
International Trade and Industry (MITI) orchestrated a flood of
innovative computer products by Japanese manufacturers. At the
time, many analysts thought the country would dominate the global
PC industry the much the same way it same way it took over consumer
electronics in the ’60s and ’70s. Unfortunately, MITI never
appreciated the importance of software. The country never developed
a software industry on a par with North America’s. Over time
Japan’s position deteriorated as the software and services sector
became an increasingly important part of IT, and as other Asian
states took over a greater share of the chips and commodity
components marketplace. That slump became a crash as the U.S. and
European markets faded over the last couple of years.

“Today MITI has renamed itself the Ministry of Economy, Trade
and Industry (METI). Along with the name is a change in its
attitude. Now, METI thinks local markets are important. It thinks
software is critically important. And, it has begun to promote Open
Source as a way to increase the efficiency of the country’s
manufacturing base and to advance Japan’s high technology
industries. Over the last two years METI has been the force behind
a number of Linux-centric projects such as the SCore Cluster System
software adopted by NEC and Fujitsu.

“This week, METI will escalate its involvement with the Open
Source community. It proposes to organize that community into a
national resource…”

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