2005-03-25 20:34:37sophie
向台灣的工程師致敬
2005/03/21 的BusinessWeek公布了一個賺錢程式：
美國的晶片製造商 + 台灣的工程師 + 印度的軟體開發 + 中國製造工廠 = 賺大錢
全篇非常美國觀點，擔心美國製造業外移後，在節省成本的考量下，逐漸地連研究開發(R&D)，連創新(innovation)也開始外包。而且令人憂心的是，這些研發創新的外包廠商是如此的訓練有素且便宜好用，讓美國公司根本無法抗拒。其中，最令人敬佩的就是台灣的電腦/電子產業，文章中報導宏達國際(HTC)，廣達(Quanta)，普立爾(Premier Imaging Technology Corp.)，仁寶(compal)，緯創(Wistron)，華碩(Asustek)，英業達(Inventec)，華晶科技(Altek)，正文科技(Gemtek)...都是技術先進的頂尖公司。好還要更好，精益求精，以廣達為例，林百里更強調自我創新是台灣的唯一生存之道。
全篇大約提到Taiwan or Taiwanese 至少有13次之多，雖然是一篇對美國製造業外包現象的警惕討論文章，讀完之後，卻深深以台灣的工程師為傲，台灣所擁有的研發創新能力絕對是全世界無法睥睨的。
敬 辛苦的台灣工程師，因為你們的勤奮，才有如此傲人的成就。
全文太長，無法轉貼，有興趣者，請買一本來看，
或到各公司/學校的閱覽室/圖書館借閱。
驕傲歸驕傲，還是可以看出我們應該要進步的地方在哪裡
(如，學習Apple嚴格控制R&D不假外人之手以及品牌管理的能力)。
P.S. 本文同步刊於http://e23things.blogspot.com/
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝
延伸網址：
文中所提之相關廠商：
http://www.htc.com.tw/CHTC/news/index.htm
http://www.quantatw.com/
http://www.premierimage.com.tw/intro.htm
http://www.compal.com/index_Ch.htm
http://www.wistron.com.tw/
http://www.asus.com.tw/
http://www.inventec.com/pages/
http://www.altek.com.tw/
http://www.gemtek.com.tw/
原文網址：
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/05_12/b3925601.htm?chan=mz
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_12/b3925601.htm
節錄原文如下：
MARCH 21, 2005 BusinessWeek
OUTSOURCING INNOVATION
By Pete Engardio and Bruce Einhorn
With Manjeet Kripalani in Bangalore, Andy Reinhardt in Cannes, Bruce Nussbaum in Somers, N.Y., and Peter Burrows in San Mateo, Calif.
OUTSOURCING INNOVATION
First came manufacturing. Now companies are farming out R&D to cut costs and get new products to market faster. Are they going too far?
As the Mediterranean sun bathed the festive cafés and shops of the Côte d'Azur town of Cannes, banners with the logos of Motorola (MOT ), Royal Philips Electronics (PHG ), palmOne (PLMO ), and Samsung fluttered from the masts of plush yachts moored in the harbor. On board, top execs hosted nonstop sales meetings during the day and champagne dinners at night to push their latest wireless gadgets. Outside the city's convention hall, carnival barkers, clowns on stilts, and vivacious models with bright red wigs lured passersby into flashy exhibits. For anyone in the telecom industry wanting to shout their achievements to the world, there was no more glamorous spot than the sprawling 3GSM World Congress in Southern France in February.
Yet many of the most intriguing product launches in Cannes took place far from the limelight. HTC Corp., a red-hot developer of multimedia handsets, didn't even have its own booth. Instead, the Taiwanese company showed off its latest wireless devices alongside partners that sell HTC's models under their own brand names. Flextronics Corp. demonstrated several concept phones exclusively behind closed doors. And Cellon International rented a discrete three-room apartment across from the convention center to unveil its new devices to a steady stream of telecom executives.
...
HTC? Flextronics? Cellon? There's a good reason these are hardly household names. The multimedia devices produced from their prototypes will end up on retail shelves under the brands of companies that don't want you to know who designs their products. Yet these and other little-known companies, with names such as Quanta Computer, Premier Imaging, Wipro Technologies (WIT ), and Compal Electronics, are fast emerging as hidden powers of the technology industry.
They are the vanguard of the next step in outsourcing -- of innovation itself. When Western corporations began selling their factories and farming out manufacturing in the '80s and '90s to boost efficiency and focus their energies, most insisted all the important research and development would remain in-house.
But that pledge is now passé. Today, the likes of Dell (DELL ), Motorola, (MOT ) and Philips are buying complete designs of some digital devices from Asian developers, tweaking them to their own specifications, and slapping on their own brand names. It's not just cell phones. Asian contract manufacturers and independent design houses have become forces in nearly every tech device, from laptops and high-definition TVs to MP3 music players and digital cameras. "Customers used to participate in design two or three years back," says Jack Hsieh, vice-president for finance at Taiwan's Premier Imaging Technology Corp., a major supplier of digital cameras to leading U.S. and Japanese brands. "But starting last year, many just take our product. Because of price competition, they have to."
.....
Competitive Dangers
.... What, specifically, has to be done in-house anymore? At a minimum, most leading Western companies are turning toward a new model of innovation, one that employs global networks of partners. These can include U.S. chipmakers, Taiwanese engineers, Indian software developers, and Chinese factories. IBM (IBM ) is even offering the smarts of its famed research labs and a new global team of 1,200 engineers to help customers develop future products using next-generation technologies. When the whole chain works in sync, there can be a dramatic leap in the speed and efficiency of product development.
The downside of getting the balance wrong, however, can be steep. Start with the danger of fostering new competitors. Motorola hired Taiwan's BenQ Corp. to design and manufacture millions of mobile phones. But then BenQ began selling phones last year in the prized China market under its own brand. That prompted Motorola to pull its contract. Another risk is that brand-name companies will lose the incentive to keep investing in new technology. "It is a slippery slope," says Boston Consulting Group Senior Vice-President Jim Andrew. "If the innovation starts residing in the suppliers, you could incrementalize yourself to the point where there isn't much left."
...
The concerns also explain why different companies are adopting widely varying approaches to this new paradigm. Dell, for example, does little of its own design for notebook PCs, digital TVs, or other products. Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ ) says it contributes key technology and at least some design input to all its products but relies on outside partners to co-develop everything from servers to printers. Motorola buys complete designs for its cheapest phones but controls all of the development of high-end handsets like its hot-selling Razr. The key, execs say, is to guard some sustainable competitive advantage, whether it's control over the latest technologies, the look and feel of new products, or the customer relationship. "You have to draw a line," says Motorola CEO Edward J. Zander. At Motorola, "core intellectual property is above it, and commodity technology is below."
Wherever companies draw the line, there's no question that the demarcation between mission-critical R&D and commodity work is sliding year by year. The implications for the global economy are immense. Countries such as India and China, where wages remain low and new engineering graduates are abundant, likely will continue to be the biggest gainers in tech employment and become increasingly important suppliers of intellectual property. Some analysts even see a new global division of labor emerging: The rich West will focus on the highest levels of product creation, and all the jobs of turning concepts into actual products or services can be shipped out. Consultant Daniel H. Pink, author of the new book A Whole New Mind, argues that the "left brain" intellectual tasks that "are routine, computer-like, and can be boiled down to a spec sheet are migrating to where it is cheaper, thanks to Asia's rising economies and the miracle of cyberspace." The U.S. will remain strong in "right brain" work that entails "artistry, creativity, and empathy with the customer that requires being physically close to the market."
You can see this great divide already taking shape in global electronics. The process started in the 1990s when Taiwan emerged as the capital of PC design, largely because the critical technology was standardized, on Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) operating system software and Intel Corp.'s (INTC ) microprocessor. Today, Taiwanese "original-design manufacturers" (ODMS), so named because they both design and assemble products for others, supply some 65% of the world's notebook PCs. Quanta Computer Inc. alone expects to churn out 16 million notebook PCs this year in 50 different models for buyers that include Dell, Apple Computer (AAPL ), and Sony (SNE ).
Now, Taiwanese ODMs and other outside designers are forces in nearly every digital device on the market. Of the 700 million mobile phones expected to be sold worldwide this year, up to 20% will be the work of ODMs, estimates senior analyst Adam Pick of the El Segundo (Calif.) market research firm iSuppli Corp. About 30% of digital cameras are produced by ODMs, 65% of MP3 players, and roughly 70% of personal digital assistants (PDAs). Building on their experience with PCs, they're increasingly creating recipes for their own gizmos, blending the latest advances in custom chips, specialized software, and state-of-the-art digital components. "There is a lot of great capability that has grown in Asia to develop complete products," says Doug Rasor, worldwide strategic marketing manager at chipmaker Texas Instruments Inc. ...
Taiwan's ODMs clearly don't regard themselves as mere job shops. Just ask the top brass at HTC, which creates and manufactures smart phones for such wireless service providers as Vodafone and Cingular as well as equipment makers it doesn't identify. "We know this kind of product category a lot better than our customers do," says HTC President Peter Chou. "We have the capability to integrate all the latest technologies. We do everything except the Microsoft operating system."
Or stop in to Quanta's headquarters in the Huaya Technology Park outside Taipei. Workers are finishing a dazzling structure the size of several football fields, with a series of wide steps leading past white columns supporting a towering Teflon-and-glass canopy. It will serve as Quanta's R&D headquarters, with thousands of engineers working on next-generation displays, digital home networking appliances, and multimedia players. This year, Quanta is doubling its engineering staff, to 7,000, and its R&D spending, to $200 million.
Why? To improve its shrinking profit margins -- and because foreign clients are demanding it. "What has changed is that more customers need us to design the whole product," says Chairman Barry Lam. For future products, in fact, "it's now difficult to get good ideas from our customers. We have to innovate ourselves."
Sweeping Overhaul
....
Why then, Marks asks, should Nokia (NOK ), Motorola, Sony-Ericsson, Alcatel (ALA ), Siemens (SI ), Samsung, and other brand-name companies all largely duplicate one another's efforts? Why should each spend $30 million to develop a new smartphone or $200 million on a cellular base station when they can just buy the hardware designs? The ultimate result, he says: Some electronics giants will shrink their R&D forces from several thousand to a few hundred, concentrating on proprietary architecture, setting key specifications, and managing global R&D teams. "There is no doubt the product companies are going to have fewer people design stuff," Marks predicts. "It's going to get ugly."
.....
美國的晶片製造商 + 台灣的工程師 + 印度的軟體開發 + 中國製造工廠 = 賺大錢
全篇非常美國觀點，擔心美國製造業外移後，在節省成本的考量下，逐漸地連研究開發(R&D)，連創新(innovation)也開始外包。而且令人憂心的是，這些研發創新的外包廠商是如此的訓練有素且便宜好用，讓美國公司根本無法抗拒。其中，最令人敬佩的就是台灣的電腦/電子產業，文章中報導宏達國際(HTC)，廣達(Quanta)，普立爾(Premier Imaging Technology Corp.)，仁寶(compal)，緯創(Wistron)，華碩(Asustek)，英業達(Inventec)，華晶科技(Altek)，正文科技(Gemtek)...都是技術先進的頂尖公司。好還要更好，精益求精，以廣達為例，林百里更強調自我創新是台灣的唯一生存之道。
全篇大約提到Taiwan or Taiwanese 至少有13次之多，雖然是一篇對美國製造業外包現象的警惕討論文章，讀完之後，卻深深以台灣的工程師為傲，台灣所擁有的研發創新能力絕對是全世界無法睥睨的。
敬 辛苦的台灣工程師，因為你們的勤奮，才有如此傲人的成就。
全文太長，無法轉貼，有興趣者，請買一本來看，
或到各公司/學校的閱覽室/圖書館借閱。
驕傲歸驕傲，還是可以看出我們應該要進步的地方在哪裡
(如，學習Apple嚴格控制R&D不假外人之手以及品牌管理的能力)。
P.S. 本文同步刊於http://e23things.blogspot.com/
＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝
延伸網址：
文中所提之相關廠商：
http://www.htc.com.tw/CHTC/news/index.htm
http://www.quantatw.com/
http://www.premierimage.com.tw/intro.htm
http://www.compal.com/index_Ch.htm
http://www.wistron.com.tw/
http://www.asus.com.tw/
http://www.inventec.com/pages/
http://www.altek.com.tw/
http://www.gemtek.com.tw/
原文網址：
http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/05_12/b3925601.htm?chan=mz
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_12/b3925601.htm
節錄原文如下：
MARCH 21, 2005 BusinessWeek
OUTSOURCING INNOVATION
By Pete Engardio and Bruce Einhorn
With Manjeet Kripalani in Bangalore, Andy Reinhardt in Cannes, Bruce Nussbaum in Somers, N.Y., and Peter Burrows in San Mateo, Calif.
OUTSOURCING INNOVATION
First came manufacturing. Now companies are farming out R&D to cut costs and get new products to market faster. Are they going too far?
As the Mediterranean sun bathed the festive cafés and shops of the Côte d'Azur town of Cannes, banners with the logos of Motorola (MOT ), Royal Philips Electronics (PHG ), palmOne (PLMO ), and Samsung fluttered from the masts of plush yachts moored in the harbor. On board, top execs hosted nonstop sales meetings during the day and champagne dinners at night to push their latest wireless gadgets. Outside the city's convention hall, carnival barkers, clowns on stilts, and vivacious models with bright red wigs lured passersby into flashy exhibits. For anyone in the telecom industry wanting to shout their achievements to the world, there was no more glamorous spot than the sprawling 3GSM World Congress in Southern France in February.
Yet many of the most intriguing product launches in Cannes took place far from the limelight. HTC Corp., a red-hot developer of multimedia handsets, didn't even have its own booth. Instead, the Taiwanese company showed off its latest wireless devices alongside partners that sell HTC's models under their own brand names. Flextronics Corp. demonstrated several concept phones exclusively behind closed doors. And Cellon International rented a discrete three-room apartment across from the convention center to unveil its new devices to a steady stream of telecom executives.
...
HTC? Flextronics? Cellon? There's a good reason these are hardly household names. The multimedia devices produced from their prototypes will end up on retail shelves under the brands of companies that don't want you to know who designs their products. Yet these and other little-known companies, with names such as Quanta Computer, Premier Imaging, Wipro Technologies (WIT ), and Compal Electronics, are fast emerging as hidden powers of the technology industry.
They are the vanguard of the next step in outsourcing -- of innovation itself. When Western corporations began selling their factories and farming out manufacturing in the '80s and '90s to boost efficiency and focus their energies, most insisted all the important research and development would remain in-house.
But that pledge is now passé. Today, the likes of Dell (DELL ), Motorola, (MOT ) and Philips are buying complete designs of some digital devices from Asian developers, tweaking them to their own specifications, and slapping on their own brand names. It's not just cell phones. Asian contract manufacturers and independent design houses have become forces in nearly every tech device, from laptops and high-definition TVs to MP3 music players and digital cameras. "Customers used to participate in design two or three years back," says Jack Hsieh, vice-president for finance at Taiwan's Premier Imaging Technology Corp., a major supplier of digital cameras to leading U.S. and Japanese brands. "But starting last year, many just take our product. Because of price competition, they have to."
.....
Competitive Dangers
.... What, specifically, has to be done in-house anymore? At a minimum, most leading Western companies are turning toward a new model of innovation, one that employs global networks of partners. These can include U.S. chipmakers, Taiwanese engineers, Indian software developers, and Chinese factories. IBM (IBM ) is even offering the smarts of its famed research labs and a new global team of 1,200 engineers to help customers develop future products using next-generation technologies. When the whole chain works in sync, there can be a dramatic leap in the speed and efficiency of product development.
The downside of getting the balance wrong, however, can be steep. Start with the danger of fostering new competitors. Motorola hired Taiwan's BenQ Corp. to design and manufacture millions of mobile phones. But then BenQ began selling phones last year in the prized China market under its own brand. That prompted Motorola to pull its contract. Another risk is that brand-name companies will lose the incentive to keep investing in new technology. "It is a slippery slope," says Boston Consulting Group Senior Vice-President Jim Andrew. "If the innovation starts residing in the suppliers, you could incrementalize yourself to the point where there isn't much left."
...
The concerns also explain why different companies are adopting widely varying approaches to this new paradigm. Dell, for example, does little of its own design for notebook PCs, digital TVs, or other products. Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ ) says it contributes key technology and at least some design input to all its products but relies on outside partners to co-develop everything from servers to printers. Motorola buys complete designs for its cheapest phones but controls all of the development of high-end handsets like its hot-selling Razr. The key, execs say, is to guard some sustainable competitive advantage, whether it's control over the latest technologies, the look and feel of new products, or the customer relationship. "You have to draw a line," says Motorola CEO Edward J. Zander. At Motorola, "core intellectual property is above it, and commodity technology is below."
Wherever companies draw the line, there's no question that the demarcation between mission-critical R&D and commodity work is sliding year by year. The implications for the global economy are immense. Countries such as India and China, where wages remain low and new engineering graduates are abundant, likely will continue to be the biggest gainers in tech employment and become increasingly important suppliers of intellectual property. Some analysts even see a new global division of labor emerging: The rich West will focus on the highest levels of product creation, and all the jobs of turning concepts into actual products or services can be shipped out. Consultant Daniel H. Pink, author of the new book A Whole New Mind, argues that the "left brain" intellectual tasks that "are routine, computer-like, and can be boiled down to a spec sheet are migrating to where it is cheaper, thanks to Asia's rising economies and the miracle of cyberspace." The U.S. will remain strong in "right brain" work that entails "artistry, creativity, and empathy with the customer that requires being physically close to the market."
You can see this great divide already taking shape in global electronics. The process started in the 1990s when Taiwan emerged as the capital of PC design, largely because the critical technology was standardized, on Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) operating system software and Intel Corp.'s (INTC ) microprocessor. Today, Taiwanese "original-design manufacturers" (ODMS), so named because they both design and assemble products for others, supply some 65% of the world's notebook PCs. Quanta Computer Inc. alone expects to churn out 16 million notebook PCs this year in 50 different models for buyers that include Dell, Apple Computer (AAPL ), and Sony (SNE ).
Now, Taiwanese ODMs and other outside designers are forces in nearly every digital device on the market. Of the 700 million mobile phones expected to be sold worldwide this year, up to 20% will be the work of ODMs, estimates senior analyst Adam Pick of the El Segundo (Calif.) market research firm iSuppli Corp. About 30% of digital cameras are produced by ODMs, 65% of MP3 players, and roughly 70% of personal digital assistants (PDAs). Building on their experience with PCs, they're increasingly creating recipes for their own gizmos, blending the latest advances in custom chips, specialized software, and state-of-the-art digital components. "There is a lot of great capability that has grown in Asia to develop complete products," says Doug Rasor, worldwide strategic marketing manager at chipmaker Texas Instruments Inc. ...
Taiwan's ODMs clearly don't regard themselves as mere job shops. Just ask the top brass at HTC, which creates and manufactures smart phones for such wireless service providers as Vodafone and Cingular as well as equipment makers it doesn't identify. "We know this kind of product category a lot better than our customers do," says HTC President Peter Chou. "We have the capability to integrate all the latest technologies. We do everything except the Microsoft operating system."
Or stop in to Quanta's headquarters in the Huaya Technology Park outside Taipei. Workers are finishing a dazzling structure the size of several football fields, with a series of wide steps leading past white columns supporting a towering Teflon-and-glass canopy. It will serve as Quanta's R&D headquarters, with thousands of engineers working on next-generation displays, digital home networking appliances, and multimedia players. This year, Quanta is doubling its engineering staff, to 7,000, and its R&D spending, to $200 million.
Why? To improve its shrinking profit margins -- and because foreign clients are demanding it. "What has changed is that more customers need us to design the whole product," says Chairman Barry Lam. For future products, in fact, "it's now difficult to get good ideas from our customers. We have to innovate ourselves."
Sweeping Overhaul
....
Why then, Marks asks, should Nokia (NOK ), Motorola, Sony-Ericsson, Alcatel (ALA ), Siemens (SI ), Samsung, and other brand-name companies all largely duplicate one another's efforts? Why should each spend $30 million to develop a new smartphone or $200 million on a cellular base station when they can just buy the hardware designs? The ultimate result, he says: Some electronics giants will shrink their R&D forces from several thousand to a few hundred, concentrating on proprietary architecture, setting key specifications, and managing global R&D teams. "There is no doubt the product companies are going to have fewer people design stuff," Marks predicts. "It's going to get ugly."
.....
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