世論 What Japan Thinks

In the US and the UK I get the distinct impression that the netbook market is in a rush for the bottom, but here in Japan, premium-priced mini-notebooks seem to be the norm according to this recent survey from Media Interactive reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Over the 16th and 17th of February 2010 1,000 internet users completed a survey, although the means of gathering this sample was not described. 53.1% of the sample were male, 0.8% in their teens, 13.8% in their twenties, 31.3% in their thirties, 28.3% in their forties, 17.9% in their fifties, and 7.9% in their sixties.

I’ve now had my MSI Wind for about four months; I picked it up for under 300 dollars in the US, and it works great as a second PC that I can use when my wife’s busy with the main computer, or for stuffing in my rucksack whenever I have a solo train ride with 20 minutes or more to kill.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a very interesting survey conducted by goo Research into mobile devices, their very first in a new series of monthly surveys.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 6th of August 2009 1,087 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a computer internet-based questionnaire. 52.4% of the sample were male, 17.3% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, and 27.3% in their fifties.

You’ll notice that as well as netbooks there are also UMPCs, or Ultra-Mobile Personal Computers and MIDs, Mobile Internet Devices. A survey from earlier this year contained an explanation of the differences between netbooks and UMPCs, and MIDs seem to be the halfway house between a smartphone and a netbook or UMPC. Oh, and a PND appears to be a Personal Navigation Device, or a GPS-based route-mapping device.

I also think that Q1 should have included the iPod Touch.

I don’t carry anything other than a dumb phone, but I want to buy a netbook some time… I used to be interested in getting a Japan manufacturer-built Android-based mobile, but I’m going off the idea a bit.
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Perhaps I over-estimate the average Japanese consumer’s desire for value before reputation, but I found the results of this survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into computers at home quite surprising.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of September 2008 1,001 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 3.0% of the sample were male, 12.7% in their teens, 22.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

NEC, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Sony have TV tuners in most of their line-up, as well as integrated features for recording television shows to disk, so their desktops, usually equipped with wide-screens, can easily double as televisions in cramped Japanese homes.

In the notebook field, Panasonic come a very poor 10th with not even 3% of the home market, despite an earlier survey showing them to be the most popular business notebook. The price of them at retail is frightening, quite frankly, and they come with very few of the bells and whistles that are loaded (overloaded?) onto the other brands. Wondering out loud with absolutely no information to back this up, but given that they have recently released Viera-branded (their TV technology) mobile phones, I wonder if they’ll build a Viera notebook (or even desktop) to try to capture more of the home market?

Finally, despite the sub-notebook market being big in the West at least, and despite many shops selling an Asus Eee PC for just 100 yen if you take out a two-year subscription to the 3G mobile internet service from E-Mobile, Asus and Acer with their Aspire One barely register in sales or purchase intentions.
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With the sub-notebook market hotting up, and the Asus Eee PC available even in the big electrical superstores at a reasonable price, making it the top-selling portable according to Kakaku.com at the time or writing, this is a good tim to take a look at a recent survey published by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into home computers, with the column focusing on portable machines.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 3rd of July 2008 1,101 members of the goo Research online monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 8.7% in their teens, 26.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.6% aged fifty or older.

In addition to the previously-mentioned Eee PC, other people getting in on the market in Japan include HP with their HP 2133 Mini-Note PC and local maker Kohjinsha with their imaginatively-named SC3KP06A. I’m hoping that the Acer Aspire One will be out by the time I pass back through duty-free at the end of the month, and judging by a recent article on The Register I’ll be spoilt for choice as a flood of Intel Atom-based sub-notebooks come out at the end of this month. I want the Linux one, not for any anti-Microsoft reasons, but just that I’m a stingey git…
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Barely a month goes by these days without a story about someone leaking state secrets through Winny or other P2P software, so to see if either the personal or corporate world are doing anything about these sorts of issues, Marsh Inc conducted a survey reported on by japan.internet.com into awareness of information security.

Demographics

Between the 29th of May and the 3rd of June 2008 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group employed in either the public or private sector successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

We have internet policies at work that basically say no non-work sites are to be accessed, but I a friend works on the basis that if the proxy doesn’t block it then it’s OK. They also ban Skype because it can use a lot of bandwidth, but that excuse always smelt of convenience, as rather than put rules in place to ensure that it doesn’t steal bandwidth in the office, a blanket ban was much simpler. It’s a bit of a pain when on business trips, as I can’t use Skype for free or cheap phone calls.

In addition, at my workplace the first five security measures mentioned in Q4 are in place and we also have a smart card that is needed in order to connect to either the wireless network or the VPN.

I was disappointing in Q4 not to see the Trusted Platform Module being asked about, although I suspect the figures for usage would be absolutely zero! However, with Interop Tokyo next week seeing the launch of the Japan Regional Forum of the Trusted Computing Group, perhaps we’ll see a survey on awareness of that particular technology soon.
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I’m the odd one out in the office as just about everyone else uses their portable computer rather than their desktop as their main computer for less compute-intensive tasks such as email, document preparation, etc. This perhaps is a common situation in other offices too, given the results of a survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into notebook computers and mobility.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of February 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either the private or public sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 83.9% were male, 9.7% in their twenties, 38.8% in their thirties, 34.8% in their forties, 13.6% in their fifties, and 3.0% in their sixties.

Q1SQ1 should be read with care, as it is not where people habitually use their notebook computers, but just places that they have. For example, 18% say they use theirs when commuting, but it doesn’t mean that one in five people in the morning rush train are typing away; it’s rare (once a week or less?) that I see anyone else typing away on the train, whether it be packed or empty.
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One thing one may notice after being around Japanese salarymen is that their tools of the trade, as it were, are much smaller than that of the average American business-person, but they still do pack quite a considerable punch and they are rather proud of the features of their home-grown models. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not the headline and the preceding sentence have anything to do with a recent survey conducted by Yahoo! Japan Value Insight on the subject of notebook (laptop) computers and Japanese businessmen.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of August 2007 Yahoo! Japan Value Insight gathered the opinions of 16,526 members of their online monitor panel. All were male, and the sample had almost exactly 25% (plus or minus two people) in each of the age bands of twenties, thirties, forties and fifties. 14,037 of the sample, or 84.9%, went on domestic business trips at least once per month. This group was asked Q1. In addition, a smaller group of 2,000 businessmen registered with mpack, the mobile monitor group of Yahoo! Japan Value Insight, who went on business trips at least once a month carrying a notebook computer were asked the more detailed questions Q2 to Q8. This group was made up of 500 people in their twenties, 500 in their thirties, 500 in their forties, and 500 in their fifties. Note that business trip covers both day trips and overnight stays, or even just visiting another branch of the same company in the same city.

There’s a mass of fascinating data in this survey! For instance, Q1 on what people take with them on business trips; old guys prefer carrying a digital camera to a notebook computer; indeed why do almost three in ten take a digitial camera with them?

Although Panasonic loses out badly to Apple in the portable audio player battlefield, here they beat everyone in terms of sales and are only just edged out by the Mac in terms of user satisfaction.

Finally, I must add that I am another satisfied Let’s Note user.
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