Japan Inc may win Sharp battle, but lose the LCD war

They could always ask the taxpayers.

While it's often necessary for business reasons, it's never so nice to sell national brands to foreigner companies. For example, it's a bit annoying when I see some people saying "Great German brands like Ducati and Lamborghini" and I am like "ehm...but...they were Italian...the stuff is still made in Italy"..."Who cares? German companies bought them so they are German now" and me "...ok. It's not really like that though, but whatever you want".

What? Ducati and Lamborghini are always Italian to me. I never consider them German.

Let Sharp go bankrupt. Do not make the taxpayers pay for the mistakes made by a private company.

This is what happens when the amakudari system is allowed to exist. The former bankers and politicians who are now executives at Sharp are twisting the arms of their friends who are still in banking and politics. How many of these friends will be rewarded with positions at the new Sharp?

In the meantime, this allows Sharp to continue to produce products people don't want, and to continue using a business model which doesn't work. And the already heavily taxed and nationally indebted Japanese get stuck with the bill.

Let Sharp go bankrupt. Do not make the taxpayers pay for the mistakes made by a private company.

If this was put into practice there would be few remaining "brands" in Japan.

Abenomics is to blame for this. The purpose of Abe's cheaper yen. He thought it would encourage foreign to buy Japanese products. It was obvious what foreign countries would buy, Japanese property, assets such as land and companies.

Devaluing the yen may have made Japanese LCDs and so on cheaper, but it also made their manufacturers cheaper.

In the US the government saved American carmakers industry. Having the state that supports private companies isn't a Japan only thing. Don't start the usual old joke, guys.

American car companies and banks should have been allowed to fail. That is true capitalism.

@shonanbb: I didn't say it is right or wrong. I said simply it's not something that happens only in Japan.

The paradoxical thing is that right now on the Foreign Minisry's website is a message from Abe saying, "The government will develop an environment where all companies and human resources enjoy the benefits of global economy and facilitate full-fledged globalization in Japan in order to attract outstanding overseas manpower and technologies to Japan and to create employment and innovation. It will also aim to double inward FDI stocks to 35 trillion yen in 2020 (17.8 trillion yen at the end of 2012)." There is even talk of 5 promises: "The "Five Promises for Attracting Foreign Businesses to Japan" (which was adopted by the Council for Promotion of Foreign Direct Investment in Japan on March 17, 2015) established the "Investment Advisor Assignment System" at the initiative of the Prime Minister." Either someon is not getting the message from Abe, or is resisting it to feather their own nest, or Abe is talking with forked tongue again.

“In the end, they are trying to saving face for Japan. the foundation of much of J business and government.

There is no limit to tax money diversion it seems.

Its a losing game with sharp, too many weak companies are kept afloat making all companies weaker.

I understand the sentiment but sharp aint coming back from the dead, at best they can separate the bits with potential.

Fact is for most electronic stuff Japan just cant see its days are mostly done, finished, same happened in Europe & Cda, USA etc, Japan just doesn't want to face the music. And this will happen to China as well.........

Sharp products are much more style than substance. I am still fuming over the last two overpriced and underperforming products the wife bought from that company. Let them fail.

This is Japanese protectionism of the worst kind and those who keep whinging that the US did the same in 2008. In 2008 Ford and Chrysler were going to go bankrupt, while the INCJ just keeps blocking Japanese companies falling in the hands of foreign companies. Foxconn have offered a very good price for Sharp, but Japan Inc has done its usual cockblock.

Imagine if Europe, Australia and the US had done the same to the Japanese in the 1980s?

Usual case of the Japanese mindset that, 'what is yours is ours, what is mine is mine'. I wish Japan would grow up and get with even a late 20th Century mindset.

This afternoon I'm going to watch the result of the Japanese opening up a select market 20 years ago. For the first time in 10 years, I'm going to watch a Japanese sumo wrestler win a tourney.

Without that opening up, Sumo would have remained the boring dieing sport it was, when I first came to this country.

If only the rest of Japan could learn this lesson! Never happen, until it's too late.

I like my Sharp products - they're very good. I like the fourth gun. I'd rather see Sharp survive.

I knew an engineer who worked at Sharp in the flat-panel TV segment. He said everyone was depressed because the Taiwanese undercut their business and they weren't selling much. He finally left for a different company in consumer electronics.

turbot

I knew an engineer who worked at Sharp in the flat-panel TV segment. He said everyone was depressed because the Taiwanese undercut their business and they weren't selling much. He finally left for a different company in consumer electronics.

I worked at Sharp for 10 years at their Kaihin Makuhari site, where the Aquos technology was developed. They were depressed long before Taiwan undercut their business. Even in the good days of Aquos, bonuses were low, HR section would cause so much discomfort by transferring their most able engineers all over the lengths of inaka Japan, the real gutsy managers who built up Sharp retired on mass in the early 2000s to be replaced by mediocre small minded 'Yes' men and Sharp higher management made some very bad business decisions in trying to keep manufacturing in Japan and not keeping a tight check on quality control in their European factories.

I've been saying it for years on here, Sharp was doomed from around 2005 and my other prediction that Sony will soon follow is not far off coming true.

HR section would cause so much discomfort by transferring their most able engineers all over the lengths of inaka Japan

This is a major problem in Japanese corporations. They don't care about their employees' personal lives, and they will transfer them anywhere without a care as to what their personal restrictions may be. My brother-in-law just got notified of a transfer to China from 1-5 years. They didn't ask him if he wanted or didn't want it. They just told him he was going, and that was the end of it.

In the past, this worked, but as Japan comes more aware of the world outside Japan, where employers care about their employees, tactics like this will stop working, and will only damage companies.

LCD isn't the future OLED is! If sharp has LCD tech it thinks is important it isn't and then government is listening to the wrong people

Chrysler is now Fiat; IBM consumer PC is now Lenovo; Beam is now Suntory; happens all the time.

Consumers will always look at cheap prices before quality products. Sharp has its work cut out for it.

Just put them out of their misery already. Amen to the HE discussions...

@Gary Raynor

I guess the malaise was worldwide, my friend worked at a Sharp site somewhere around Vancouver, WA or Portland, OR. Think he probably left around late 2000's.

i read a report telling S.Korean mobile manufacturer SAMSUNG income is more than Sony,Panasonic and Toshiba all together.Sharp isnt any more competitive,better to save tax payer money and get out of this vicious circle.I have no doubt Japan can found and create hundreds of amazing innovative companies as usual.Let me ask a question,where are the ultra giant oil companies nowadays? which,one day their budget were much more than many countries.I can tell very soon we will see oil giants vanish,and disappear.I still remember giant oil companies were called SEVEN SISTERS,they were the most powerful oil lobby,who decide prices of oil,not oil producer countries.Now APPLE company is much more bigger than any of them.