Reader Survey: Microsoft And Google Take Top Honors
2008年10月22日
THREE YEARS ago, Google Inc. had a marginal physical presence in Asia -- a handful of staff in sales offices in Japan, Korea and Australia. Flash forward to 2008: The company has 2,000 employees in 15 offices in the region, plus 11 research-and-development centers, where engineers churn out products and services for Asian markets as well as Internet users world-wide.
The Asian focus has helped propel Google up the charts in The Wall Street Journal Asia's reader survey of Asia's most-admired multinationals. Google grabbed the No. 1 spot in the featured category, 'Innovative in Responding to Customer Needs.' It is the second survey in a row Google has held the top spot as an innovator, a category that asks readers to tell us which companies they consider best at bringing new products and services to the market as well as at employing sophisticated customer service.
The company has been especially busy in China. In July, Google invested approximately $1 million in Comsenz Inc., a provider of Bulletin Board System and social-networking software, as well as hosted services for Web sites in China. In 2007, Google bought a stake in Xunlei Network Technology Co., which offers video and game downloads in China; forged ties with popular Web portal Sina.com to jointly offer search and advertising services; and opened an research-and-development center in Shanghai, its second in China.
'We've been in massive growth mode in Asia,' says Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google's president of Asia Pacific and Latin America Operations. 'In 2005, we made a commitment to invest in a local presence.'
Google also placed in the top three in the category of long-term vision of management. Those two strong showings boosted Google's standing on the overall most-admired list. It rocketed up from seventh place in 2006 to second most-admired multinational in this survey.
Once again, readers voted software giant Microsoft Corp. as Asia's overall top company. It occupies first place for the 12th consecutive survey. Microsoft placed second in the innovation category, up from eighth place the in 2006. Readers again voted Microsoft No. 1 in two of the five categories: long-term vision and financial reputation.
Canon Inc. was selected No. 1 for quality of products and services, and BMW AG was voted tops for corporate reputation.
Toyota Motor Corp., Nokia Corp., and Intel Corp. round out the overall most-admired top five.
A total of 2,477 executives and professionals participated in the survey, which was conducted last year between May 11 and July 3. On behalf of The Wall Street Journal, market-research firm Colmar Brunton polled subscribers as well as other businesspeople in 12 Asia-Pacific countries. Fascination with technology
The dominance of Internet, software and consumer-electronics companies in our regional survey highlights the importance of technological innovation to Asian consumers. Eight of the survey's top 10 most-admired multinationals are technology companies. Nine of the top 10 innovators are from the technology or consumer-electronics sector, including Nokia, Yahoo Inc., Sony Corp., Apple Inc., Nintendo Co., Samsung Electronics Co. and eBay Inc.
'Many people in Asia have a fascination with technology because it is a symbol of advancement,' says Chris Beaumont, chairman and chief executive of advertising and marketing agency Grey Group Japan, and chief strategy officer for Asia. 'Multinational technology companies are well-respected because they bring the new global standard and make a material difference to improve peoples' lives.'
Microsoft's long-running dominance of our Asian survey is no surprise to industry analysts. 'It's hard to argue with success,' says David Mitchell Smith, an analyst in Bedford, N.H., with technology-research firm Gartner Inc.
Analysts say Microsoft's high ranking probably has to do with the effort it puts into localizing products. In India alone, Microsoft has made 14 local-language packs that people can download free.
'Having a product in local languages is crucial to achieving the goal of putting the power of technology into the hands of more people, especially as 32% of all known languages are from Asia,' says Emilio Umeoka, Microsoft's Asia Pacific president. 'Some countries require the use of multiple languages at once, so we developed a multilingual system that could easily switch between dialects to make it appropriate and adaptable to various groups within each market. '
Asia now plays a key part in Microsoft's global quest for innovation. Microsoft invests $7 billion annually in research and development, and today two of Microsoft Research's five labs are in Asia -- one in Bangalore, India, and one in Beijing. 'Microsoft Research Asia has also achieved many technological breakthroughs. More than 200 innovations from the Beijing lab alone have been transferred to Microsoft products, including Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007, Xbox and Windows Live. In addition, the Microsoft India Development Centre in Hyderabad has filed over 220 patents over the last four years,' says Mr. Umeoka.
Innovation that makes software more affordable for developing markets is another reason for Microsoft's high profile in Asia. One example is pay-as-you-go subscription computing, something Microsoft is piloting in India. Small-business owners can subscribe to business-related services, like accounting or Web hosting; a family could subscribe to a portal that offers distance learning.
The company also has rolled out Windows Starter, a low-cost, easy-to-use, bare-bones operating system for emerging markets that Microsoft launched in Thailand in 2003 as part of a joint project with the Thai government to make personal computers more affordable. More than one million people in developing markets use PCs with Windows Starter, says Mr. Umeoka.
It is also easy to see why Google rates so highly as an innovator.
'People think of Google as an innovative company because they're constantly trying new things. Some is the result of acquisitions, like YouTube and Google Earth. But they've also done quite a bit of other kinds of things,' says Mr. Smith, at Gartner, citing Web-based mail with virtually unlimited storage and Google Gears, which enables computer users to move Web applications offline.
Initially, Google's sales staff serviced clients in places like Singapore from their Palo Alto, Calif., offices. But in 2005 the company began to scale up its physical presence here, with Asia-based staff offering Asia-based products and services.
Analysts see Google's Asia commitment expanding. 'Google may account for 60% of search queries world-wide, but if Asia is the fastest-growing part of the Internet-search market and Google can't deliver strong market share, and can't sustain a strong search-market presence in the region, then its share of overall global queries will decline,' says Mark Mahaney, San Francisco-based director of Internet research at Citigroup Investment Research. Growth in China
China is the key to tapping that Asian growth. China's Internet user base surpassed the U.S. earlier this year. China had 253 million Internet users by the end of June, up 56.2% from the year before, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, a government research agency.
China's Internet advertising and online retail market is tiny -- just 5% of that of the U.S. -- but as China's economy, infrastructure and credit-card payments systems improve, that vast pool of Internet users should translate into a profitable market for Internet companies.
Google is the most popular search engine in certain Asian markets, like Australia, Singapore and India, but it runs a distant second to China's most popular search engine, Baidu.com Inc. Baidu has 63% of the Chinese search market share, while Google has 26%, according second-quarter data research by Shanghai-based iResearch. A measure of Baidu's local success: Our survey respondents in China voted it that country's most-innovative company.
Deals like the one Google signed with Sina.com, its investment in Comsenz and Xunlei, and ongoing product improvements in China will help, Mr. Mahaney says.
Google also signed a deal with China Mobile Ltd. in January 2007 to provide mobile online-search services, similar to a deal it signed with Bharti Airtel Ltd. in India in December 2006. In Japan, Google recently joined with mobile operators NTT DoCoMo and KDDI to provide Google Web Search and other services on DoCoMo i-mode and KDDI mobile handsets.
'We're glad to have partnerships with local companies that enable us to offer our products to more users in Asia on their mobile phones, a format that's already comfortable for them. We're also excited to see the growth in mobile advertising, and we recognize that there's a lot of potential in that area,' Google's Ms. Singh Cassidy says.
Turning out services with local language and local content -- like Google Maps for China -- is an important part of the company's strategy, she says.
'We've been rapidly introducing local products that enhance the way users experience the Web and that get them involved early on with some of our newest technologies. We recently introduced Street View in Australia and Japan, as well as iGoogle in a number of countries. Users are trying out YouTube in their own languages, and our Indian users are helping us test voice and [text-messaging] search products. That kind of engagement is truly how we measure our investment in the region,' Ms. Singh Cassidy says
The company declined to say what portion of revenue it earns in Asia or how much it has invested in the region. 'The fact that we have over 2,000 people in Asia of a global employee pool of 13,000 tells you how important the region is,' Ms. Singh Cassidy says. Other standouts
In the other categories, Canon's position as the world's largest manufacturer of digital cameras and office copying equipment cemented its strong profile among our survey respondents. Canon had a 43% share of the digital SLR camera market in 2007, followed by Nikon with 40% and Sony with 6%, according to market-research company International Data Corp. Canon had a 19% share of the global digital still-camera market in 2007, followed by Sony at 16% and Eastman Kodak Co. at 10%.
Throughout Asia, meanwhile, 'BMW is the brand younger professionals, celebrities and 'new money' aspire to in most Asian countries,' says Ashvin Chotai, managing director at London-based Intelligence Automotive Asia. 'BMW has stuck to its core values and engineering excellence,' and its culture hasn't been diluted by mergers and acquisitions, he adds.
Cris Prystay |
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