Gary Poster, with essential assists from Galyn Norwood, Phiroon Phihakendr, Jose Quijada, Pavandeep Kalra. For the past four decades, Japan has been showing the world how to take technological innovation and turn it into gold. While foreign companies, most of them in the U.S., are zipping ahead along this frontier, Japan is way behind, clueless in cyberspace. Besides, Japan's strength lay in hardware, not fuzzy concepts.
Nobody knows where it is.
Now he, and others, at least have the rainbow in sight. During the past year, U.S. companies have been streaming into the multimedia business, and the optimists among them expect to see gold glittering soon. They don't know how. In crucial areas such as telecommunications, software and online services, Japan is barely in view. Apprehension about slipping behind in a crucial technology race is rising to the level of panic in Japan.