Gartner analysts weigh the question of America's "unmatched" business environment vs. rapid growth in upstart countries. This seems to be the key question as the Symposium ITxpo 2007 got underway.
Over the past decade, China has become the leaders in high-tech manufacturing and India has performed the same in IT services. The question is, could either of these rapid growth countries, or a combined, "Chindia" overcome the U.S. in these high stake global game.?
The position that the U.S. is maintaining its lead in high-tech innovation belongs to Gartner's Jamie Popkin. He points out that America continues to attract the best students from overseas, most of whom decide to stay. One key is the entrepreneurial environment in the U.S., in his word, "unmatched." U.S. consumers and corporate buyers are the most demanding in the world.
The U.S. survived and then prospered following the tour other recent waves of globalization. Japan for example, took a leadership position in the automotive industry, not too mention the recent note that Toyota has outsold GM for the first three months of 2007. But in the 1970s consumer electronics industries also took off in Japan. South Korea and Taiwan, starting in the 1970s, shifted to leadership in chip manufacturing plants as it did for Korea and Taiwan in the 1980s. China grabbed a large-scale shift of low-cost manufacturing that started in the 1990s. Finally, in India there was a subsequent outsourcing of software development and IT services since 2000.
On the other hand, Sandy Shen, promoted the idea that China will be supreme in a decade. Impressively, China is experiencing a 11% economic growth rate last year while the U.S. only grew 3.4%. Moreover, China increased its R&D by 20% last year which is second only to the U.S.
Entreprenership is alive and well in China in that the number of patent applications filed in China in 2005 is more than the U.S. in the same year. 2 million students graduated with engineering degrees annually in China, although without detailing exactly what skills in involved weakens the case for Chinese strength. They are voting with the feet, to return to China, so they must prefer their native country to the U.S.
Although individual products may not be all that revealing. They are only as good as the last fad, more interestingly, Shen's note that China is developing national technology standards that the country's government is pushing to be adopted internationally is more intriguing.
Blog Smith is inspired by the myth of Hephaestus in the creation of blacksmith-like, forged materials: ideas. This blog analyzes topics that interest me: IT, politics, technology, history, education, music, and the history of religions.