Japanese computer firms evolved from the electronic and telecommunications equipment industries, while US firms such as IBM and Sperry Rand evolved from the business machines industry. From the late 1950s to early 1960s, the Japanese computer industry lacked computer peripherals and software technology. Therefore, it needed to acquire the technology from US firms.
To do so, it needed to negotiate technological partnerships with IBM and Sperry Rand. This negotiation process greatly influenced the later competitive advantage of both the US and Japanese firms in the Japanese computer market. However, previous studies have not examined this influence in sufficient detail. Therefore, this paper focuses on the negotiation process between Sperry Rand and three Japanese parties (Nippon Remington Univac [NRU], Toshiba, and Ministry of International Trade and Industry), and uses Japanese archives to examine the negotiations' influence on Sperry Rand and Toshiba.
This paper elucidates two points. First, Sperry Rand did not benefit from negotiations compared with IBM. Because it fell behind in patent applications and publication of computer principles and related technologies in Japan, it fell behind in the Japanese market. Second, Toshiba's role in founding NRU and negotiating with Sperry Rand delayed the commercialization of its computers. Toshiba expected an earlier technology transfer from Sperry Rand, and planned its computer business on the premise that NRU would order many computers and peripherals, but the partnership did not come to fruition.
In the 1960s Japanese computer market, IBM gained a competitive advantage among foreign firms, while Fujitsu, Hitachi, and NEC did the same among Japanese firms. This situation was a consequence of Sperry Rand's and Toshiba's respective problems.
