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about Asia Buzz
Asia Buzz: Behind the Times
Asia doesn't innovate too well
By ERIC ELLIS
December 7, 2000
Web posted at 3:40 p.m. Hong Kong time, 2:40 a.m. EDT
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INTERACTIVE |
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Ticked off at Asia Buzz? Turned on? Talk back to
TIME
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The Net is supposed to provide and allow for more provocative commentary, so
here goes: Asia doesn't innovate too well. There, I said it. Now I just have to
kick back and wait for the barrage of complaints from outraged readers, citing
this invention, that gizmo, and perhaps even suggesting that I'm a racist. Well
I am open to suggestions that disabuse me of this notion. And I hope I'm very
wrong. But I don't see much out there that suggests I am.
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ASIAWEEK |
Intelligence
The story behind today's news from the editors of Asiaweek
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I should qualify my statement to mainstream gadgetry, the stuff that captures
the public imagination...and wallets. A quick scout around my gizmo-laden so-
called life and I see brand names like Palm, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Nokia
and Logitech. I figure that probably all of it was made in Asia, in places like
Penang, or the badlands around Bangkok's Don Muang Airport. But how much was
thought up, devised, conceived by Asians?
Ah, you say, probably quite a lot. What about all the Asians who populate
Silicon Valley? These days you can walk down the main drag in Fremont and
believe that you never left Hyderabad. Oracle, for instance, has so many
subcontinental programmers at its Redwood City HQ, it has special caterers
serving some of the best Indian food in California. And what about Yahoo!, eh?
Jerry Yang sounds very German!
All true, but they're all doing their thing in the U.S. Ask yourself what high-
tech gadget or gizmo that you use everyday, was built from the ground up, in
Asia. You might have to go back to the late 1970s and Sony Walkman. And what
Asian Internet firm dominates the world -- and shareholders of Pacific Century
are disqualified? There's nothing particularly innovative about a telephone
company with lots of debt.
I hear you suggesting that we should exclude the U.S., because with such a big
market, how can anyone compete? Of course, in America there's a lot of room and
capital to experiment with new ideas. America's Silicon Valley -- and there's
lots of them across the country -- are full of serial entrepreneurs who try
something out, perhaps fail, and try something else out until they get it right
or until their backers run out of patience.
So how can tiny places like Singapore or Hong Kong compete with this type of
system? Well Finland does. Nokia comes from a country with a comparable
population, income and standard of living as Singapore and Hong Kong. It wasn't
Creative Technologies, Singapore's leading tech light, that got us hooked on
mobile telephony. Nor did Hong Kong give us instant messaging. That was Israel.
But with a little imagination, they could have.
All of which is not to say that Asians are not capable of innovation. Japan has
led some spectacular innovations in engineering, in making cars, in robotics,
that have been adapted with huge success elsewhere. And when it comes to
financial innovation, few can outdo Hong Kong and its myriad corporate products
to make you -- or in the case of this year, relieve you of -- cash.
Perhaps some nerd, who has been beavering away in some hutong near Beijing
University or some kampung outside Surabaya, has overcome slow telephone lines
and corrupt bureaucracies to create next year's Next Big Thing. I hope so.
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