This article from the New York Times captured my attention while I was surfing the web. The frightening part is that it was written in 2009, which means it is already 3 years old, which in technology years is like ancient. But it was still an interesting read. According to Wiley, which was written in 2010, this article would of been fairly up to date, but more importantly, it is interesting to compare the companies mentioned in this article to how they are doing now. You might even recognize or own some of these products. So without further ado, ‘Taiwan and its strive to be Global.’
If any of you know anything about Taiwan, it is a tiny little island off the coast of China approximately the size of New Jersey. That fact somehow makes me a little sad…anyways, ethnically, were no different from the mainland Chinese (except a couple of us who have the original Aboriginal & Dutch ancestors). However politically, we are vastly different. During the Chinese civil war, the Nationalists, who lost the war by the way to the Communist, just a little of world history, fled to Taiwan, taking the countries gold reserves and most of its national treasures. There they established a separate Democratic government from Communist China. However, it was a democracy only in name. In actuality it was a dictatorship led by Chiang Kei-Shek, where there was only one party to vote for and one presidential candidate on the ballot. Only recently has it become a true democracy where there are two parties on the ballot. But that’s neither here nor there, for this is a blog about technology, not politics.
For the last 50 years, Taiwan has mostly been a manufacturing country. Foreign companies would come in with their new technology and have the Taiwanese ‘make’ it. This has worked well for the foreign companies and Taiwanese for 40 years. However, in the last 10 years, more and more of Taiwan’s work has been shipped over the straits to Mainland China. That has forced Taiwan to change from manufacturer to innovator.
Recently, there have been a trend of Taiwanese companies that have been coming out with their own brand of technology.
” With its Eee PC, Asustek practically invented the most popular category of personal computers today: the ultralight Web-oriented laptops known as netbooks. Acer, poised to overtake Dell as the world’s second-largest PC maker after Hewlett-Packard, has used its manufacturing might to produce powerful PCs that it can sell more cheaply than its competitors. And HTC developed the first smartphones to use Google’s Android operating system, becoming a showcase for the potential of the new software. ”
These advances in Taiwan’s technology have changed it to a ‘leader’ instead of a ‘follower’.
So what does this mean for the people of Taiwan. Well for starters, a higher standard of living. But Taiwan is already very modern, so what else? A shift in their economic standing from being technological manufacturers to innovators. And finally a change in the way they conduct business with their consumers. Instead of always going through a retailer or another company, they can finally sell directly to their consumers, cut out the middle man, and increase their profit margins, but first we need to send some Baruch marketing grads over to Taiwan.
If you would like to read the article for yourself here’s the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/technology/companies/04compute.html?_r=0
Michael Noverre
