My opinion of this week(489):
New Operating System Vista Windows
Many of PC users including our friends in tadML forecast that price of Vista,
new PC Windows Operating System of Home Edition will be about \10,000, about
the same as Xp. But many of Xp users must have been surprised to read the
article appeared in Asahi Newspaper on Tuesday. The article wrote the price
of Home Edition of Vista cost \27,000 or so. The article continued to
write that that was announced at net site by MS Canada by mistake. MS head
office denied the fact and commented that final prices of various editions
of Vista have not been decided yet and will be announced in near future.
Many PC users must have been shocked in a way to read the article. Although
the final prices have not been decided yet, overall price ranges of new OS
will become so high compared with those of current Xp. Users can buy now
very high spec desktop PC by \50,000 to \60,000. How expensive OS software
is if that high price of OS become reality!
Concerning this article, I commented in ML saying the disclosure of
price information may be very intentional although the head office of MS
said that had been a mistake by MS Canada. Once such high price range
has been disclosed, people may not be shocked very much when the final
price is announced in near futrure. The price of Vista Home Edition was
said to be \27,000. But when the final price become \17,000, which would
be accepted as more reasonable.
My anticipation was just about right. Masahiro Horiguchi, a member of
ML sent a new information about Vista pricing. He said the site of Amazon
US started accepting advance booking to buy Vista. According to the site
Home Basic edition of Vista costs 99$, about \10,000. Home Premium costs
150$ which is 16,000-17,000 in yen. We don't know the difference in
specifications between Home Basic and Home Premium in detail, but MS's
strategy is to sell Home Premium as a major OS for home users.
If that is the case, PC users are forced to pay 50 to 60% higher price for
operating system when new OS Vista is introduced in early 2007. I believe
it is a kind of very unfair move by MS. I forecast that some anti MS
movement will happen among all users of PC in the world in one way or the
other.
Price of Vista should be about the same as Xp as far as home user editions
is concerned. At the same time, MS must extend support period for Xp at
least three years or more, hopefully to five years. Users of the current
Windows Xp have not felt any complains about quality of it as a matter of
fact. Why do they have to pay such high price just to change to new OS?
Users of MS windows system will be satisfied if those two conditions are
satisfied. I believe all users will welcome the introduction of Vista
as well under that circumstance. The new OS will gradually expand the
market share too in the long run.
If that is not the case, I think there will appear a number of anti
MS movement in the world including the use of open source Linux and
such application software as Open Office to replace MS Office.
I wish MS should not underestimate the will and the power of PC users
all over the world.
2006/9/2
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(490):
The crime of Takafumi Horie
The trial on Takafumi Horie's illegal window-dressing accounting
of Livedoor Corporation began last week. The prosecutor office is
trying to prove the fact how Takafumi Horie had made a series of
instruction for his subordinates to dress up accounting of their
company. On the other hand, Takafumi Horie tried to deny the fact
itself. He said he is absolutely innocent on the charge for he had
never made any of such instruction to his subordinates in the past.
I have some fundamental question about how court arguments are going
on in that way.
I agree with the fact that one of the key argument is how Takafumi
Horie, the top leader of the firm, led people to make window dressing
in the firm. But it is not the whole issue at all. Whether or not
he instructed to his men to make window dressing is only a part of
the evidence of his crime. He said he is innocent on the charge for
he has never made any instruction for his men as the prosecutor office
insisted. But it is quite strange claim itself as far as my view is
concerned.
Window dressing of Livedoor is obvious fact. Takafumi Horie is the
representative director of the firm and he is responsible for it
any way whether he had made such instruction to his men or not.
He is fully responsible for it whether he recognize the fact or not.
In other word, he is responsible for any of such illegal accounting
and can never say he is innocent about it once such fact is disclosed.
The obvious fact is that the public auditing firm of Livedoor had
already been god rid of for their illegal and irrelevant auditing
practice. They were disqualified as public accountant under the
provision of the law.
The internal auditors of the firms are also to be accused for they
had never taken any necessary action to stop such window dressing
in accordance with the commercial code of this country. But the
issue have never come up in the process of court judgment as far
as I know.
There is another strange fact about what is going on. Kozo Hiramatu,
President of the firm appeared in TV interview from time to time
since Livedoor case occurred. I have a great doubt about his stance
and what he said in the interview. He is very critical about what
happened in his company and about Takafumi Horie, his immediate
boss in the past. Although he was not the director of the board, he
was and is still president of the firm. He was top executive officer
of the firm when such illegal decisions had been made. He was in
a position to know any of financial position of the firm. But he
talked like as if he is just a just an ordinal staff member of the
firm and felt no sense of responsibility for what happened in his firm.
What is a president?
I observe several more very strange phenomenon about what are going on
Livedoor case. The arguments at the court seems to cover only a
small parts of the total legal aspects concerning commercial code and
securities and exchange law and aspects of corporate governance system
in this country.
2006/9/9
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(491):
Stock price of MIXI
MIXI Corporation, a social networking service provider, has been listed
at Mothers Section of Tokyo Stock Exchange on September 14. The stock
price of the corporation was not settled on the first day because
there were so much buying demand. The price was supposed to be around
\3,000,000 or more. The price was settled to \2,950,000 on the second
day of September 15th. MIXI now becomes a new hero in IT industries
since the collapse of Livedoor in this spring. I am afraid that this
will become another burst of bubble in IT industries.
In any industries, a company which starts something new first tend to
share No.1 position in that market. Those integrated portal service firms
such as Yahoo, NIFTY, Biglobe and so on have provided various networking
services such as home-page, e-mail, BBS, BLOG, etc. in the past years.
They did not necessarily pay much attention on SNS for they might have
thought that those various existing net services which they provide cover
basic need of their customers. Service of Home-page, mail, BLOG, chat,
etc. provide good tools for SNS (Social Networking Service) . I thought
the same way and have not paid much attention on the term SNS itself.
As a matter of fact, I have been a long time user of NIFTY. I started
to use NIFTY almost 15 years ago. There was no internet in those days
but we enjoyed to use PC e-mail communication very much. What all users
of PC communication service such as NIFTY and Biglobe were enjoying
was nothing more than SNS itself although those service contents were
not so abundant as those of today.
I knew the existence of MIXI SNS. But I never try to participate in it
even if someone might have sent invitation mail to me. What I am doing
now everyday in the net is social networking works itself. I am doing
it through mail, ML, homepage, BLOG, BBS, etc. I have no more time to
make some more additional works under the name of SNS.
But timing was so amazing. Just before the MIXI's news, Mikan-san, one
of my net friends in long years since PC communication days sent me an
invitation memo to participate in Yahoo Days SNS which Yahoo started in
this July. They might have started this to compete with MIXI to maintain
their No.1 position as the integrated portal site in Japan. I recognized
the fact what is going on in net world in Japan.
I started to join Yahoo Days last week and stated enjoying new ways to
enjoy net communications through many of my present net friends and some
other new friends in various communities in Yahoo Days. That really add
to my new interest and enjoyment since then. Many of my friends to whom I
sent invitation seem to have no problems to start Yahoo Days and we look
forward to seeing many more new friends in this new community site.
I don't mean to say any complain about the listing of MAXI in the Mothers
Section of Tokyo Exchange Market. But \2,950,000, the initial price of
stock of MAXI seems to be very high at any rate. President Kasahara said
he would start splitting stock and making merger and acquisition aggressively
from now on to make their company bigger and stronger. Total equity value
of the firm counts \208 billion based on the current price of stock. It is
obviously overestimated from the current business contents and asset value
point of view. I have a great doubt on this point.
Let's keep watching the movement of this firm.
2006/9/16
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(492):
Enforcement of National Flag and Song is illegal
The group of teachers who were punished by the education board of
Tokyo Metropolitan Office for they did not follow the rule to hoist
a national flag and to sing a national anthem at such school events
as entrance or graduation ceremonies were appealing to a court that
the punishment itself is illegal in the light of basic right of
constitution. On Thursday, Tokyo District court decided those punishment
made by Tokyo metropolitan office against those plaintiffs is illegal.
I think this is really very important and big news although the news was
not treated so much for there was another big news on Thursday. Shinzo
Abe, a new leader of Liberal Democratic Party was elected to a new
President of the party.
Prime Minister Koizumi said at the press conference concerning this
sentence made by Tokyo district court that he did not really understand
why such decision had been made by the court. He said the issue is beyond
the judgment by court. The matter is concerned with very basic principles
of education today. I understood what he wanted to say in the press
conference.
There was no comment on this issue from Shinzo Abe, newly elected next
Prime Minister. But I believe he should clarify his stance on this issue
as next top leader of this country.
Shintarou Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo metropolitan office, announced
that the office will appeal the case to upper court. He wondered if
this judge observe what are going on at the field site of school. It is
very necessary to enforce national anthem and flag to establish a kind of
discipline at school. I also understand what Governor Ishihara said in
many respects.
I wrote about this news and my comment in the diary of Yahoo Days on Friday
morning. Osamu Fujiki, my net friend, wrote the comment saying this is
an issue of disciplinary rule which is required to keep any organization.
Some enforcement is necessary to keep any disciplines. The issue is whether
or not national anthem and national flag is to be a discipline to be followed
at school. I agreed with his comment and wrote my view on this.
I affirmed my view that enforcement of such ceremonial action on national
anthem and national flag is the general discipline to be followed by
students and teachers at public school if it is so decided at prefecture
level and/or national level. It is natural for those teachers of public
school to follow the rule.
But I said this is a general rule which should not necessarily be applied
to any individual persons especially for individual students. If any
individual students do not agree to sing national anthem from his political
religious belief, he should not be forced to sing the song. All he has to
do is just keep standing silently without singing the song. This is the
way how he can keep his belief and public disciplinary rule in such
occasion. This rule is to be applied to teachers in the same way.
It seems that the judgment at this time did not try to stop school to
hoist national flag and to sing national anthem at any ceremonies
at school. The judge must have said that punishment for teachers who
did not follow the rule is illegal in the light of basic principle
of constitution.
On Friday, after this judgment, group of teachers who appealed the
case to the court went to the education board of Tokyo Metropolitan
Office and demanded to stop any of such rules in the past. I just
wonder if such action is right from the point view what I said on
the above.
This will be one of very critical political issue for Abe administration
which declare that revision of Fundamental Education Law is one of the
most primary matter for new administration.
2006/9/23
Tadashi HAYASE
My opinion of this week(493):
Minister of Innovation
I am surprised to see the list of ministers of Abe Cabinet on Thursday.
The list of those major ministers such as foreign affairs, economy and
industries, Welfare and Labor, etc. in the upper page are just quite
ordinal. But a few ministers in the lower page handle two or more
affairs. They are for examples:
Yuuichiro Yamamoto : Minister of Finance and Try-again
Genichiro Sata : Minister of Regulatory Reform, System of Public
Servant and Regional System
Sanae Takaichi : Minister of Okinawa/Northern Island ,Innovation,
Reduced Birthrate , Gender Equality, Food Safety
A number of people must have been surprised to see many title of
Minister Sanae Takaichi. How can she handle so many different issues
by oneself? I know most of those titles existed before in Koizumi
cabinet or in earlier cabinets and each ones are important issues for
the nation. But Innovation seems to be a new policy theme and I wondered
what are the contents of the theme when I read a newspaper.
On Friday afternoon, Prime Minister Abe addressed his policy speech both
at House of Representative and of Councils.@He said that now is the
time to create new drives for economic growth to maintain good life of
people and the current level of social welfare. Innovation is necessary
drives for economic growth and for all parts of our society.
Yes, that is a famous theory for economic growth written by Joseph Alois
Schumpeter (1883-1950 , Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 1942) .
Students of economics must have learned about this theory and I myself
learned lots about the theory of himself and several theories of Peter
Drucker after I became a business people.
Prime Minister Abe created a new position as such based on the advice
from some member of Economic Advisory Council while he was the secretary
of Koizumi Cabinet.
I now understand the background why such new position has been created.
But I have a serious doubt about how this new position works in
administrative level. How can Minister Takaichi handle this important job
in along with so many other important issues?
Accidentally, those works which now belong to assignments of Minster
Takaichi have been handled by two female ministers, Yuriko Koike and
Kuniko Inoguchi in Koizumi Cabinet. Yuriko Koike, the former Minister of
Okinawa/Northern Island, transferred her business to Takaichi Sanae, a
new Minister in charge on Thursday. She ironically said to Takaichi :
"The whole page of your name card will be filled up just by job titles."
There are no doubt about the importance of each those key themes. The
question is how they are handled in concrete manner. How can Minister Takaichi
do those jobs?
According to my understanding, those themes are to be key words for
many other major ministries in charge of political, economical, financial
educational and many other major matters for our country when they proceed
their works in charge . All what Minister Takaichi is requested to do
to coordinate all works what are done by other major ministries concerning
those issues.
At any rate, I am anxious to see how Minister Takaichi and Abe Cabinet
start doing some concrete jobs concerned with those important issues.
2006/9/30
Tadashi HAYASE
English Home Page
Japanese Home Page