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From: diamond@diamond.csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond)
Newsgroups: comp.std.misc,comp.arch,comp.os.misc,comp.misc
Subject: Re: TRON Hammerlock??
Message-ID: <10514@socslgw.csl.sony.JUNET>
Date: 8 Jul 89 06:45:20 GMT
References: <2140@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> <116@hitachi.uucp>
Sender: news@csl.sony.JUNET
Reply-To: diamond@csl.sony.junet (Norman Diamond)
Followup-To: comp.std.misc
Organization: Sony Computer Science Laboratory Inc., Tokyo, Japan
Lines: 46

In article <116@hitachi.uucp> billg@hitachi.uucp (Bill Gundry) writes:

>As stated in earlier articles, TRON is an "open" standard, but a 
>process difficult for US companies to participate in, and not well
>promoted overseas.

It is not much more difficult for U.S. companies to participate in TRON
than it is for Japanese companies to participate in Posix.  Hire a few
people who speak the language.  A lot of U.S. companies already have
sales subsidiaries in Japan:  hire a technical person.  True, TRON is
not being given U.S.-style promotions, but so what?

>Some standards, the 32-bit VLSI and BTRON, are available in English.

There are English-language reports on more topics than these, and there
are IEEE articles.  Sure, they are not especially detailed, just like a
standard for a language or for a protocol does not include details on
proprietary implementations.

>If TRON does become a widely used standard
>in Japan there is nothing to stop U.S. companies from making TRON
>products.

Nothing is stopping them now except their own blinders.  (Such blinders
are also stopping a number of Japanese companies.  Japan Inc. is not
quite as Inc. as you think.)

>Whether or not TRON *storms* foreign markets is a question, like most
>standards efforts, that will be answered in time.  If TRON serves a purpose
>and solves the problems that the creators see then it will survive, if
>not ......

TRON will creep in slowly, just like electronics and cars originally
crept in slowly.  VCRs stormed the market because there was no U.S.
competition.  But the creeping process started a generation earlier
with transistor radios and the like.  Japanese computer products will
storm the U.S. market next generation, but at this time they'll creep
slowly.  Companies who meet real needs with quality products will win,
just as before.  (A few companies who meet political needs with hyped
products will also win, just as before.)

--
Norman Diamond, Sony Computer Science Lab (diamond%csl.sony.jp@relay.cs.net)
 The above opinions are claimed by your machine's init process (pid 1), after
 being disowned and orphaned.  However, if you see this at Waterloo, Stanford,
 or Anterior, then their administrators must have approved of these opinions.