As soon as he returned to Japan, Ibuka told Akio Morita of his decision
and asked him about the possibility of producing the transistor at Totsuko.
"It does seem worth trying," Morita agreed. They spoke to managing director
Koichi Kasahara. "We are thinking of entering the transistor field. What
would you say?" This was so sudden that Kasahara was speechless and asked
to think about it overnight.
In Kasahara's view, the transistor would be too revolutionary and risky
for a company like Totsuko and could be better handled by a larger company.
And yet given Ibuka and Morita's decision, he also felt that it could be
done. He gradually came to the view that "We must do it."
When consensus was reached in the company, Ibuka went to MITI (Ministry
of International Trade and Industry) at once to obtain a license for
manufacturing the transistor. MITI refused point-blank: "
Transistors cannot be produced so easily." How could Totsuko's small
factory produce such a complex thing as the transistor? With foreign
currency so scarce, it would simply be out of the question to let Totsuko
use dollars to pay the high royalty fee.
About that time, big companies like Toshiba Corporation, Mitsubishi
Electric Corporation and Hitachi,Ltd had begun working on the transistor in
Japan. They had signed a so-called umbrella contract with RCA in the U.S.,
which required royalty payments for producing any transistor-based
produced in Japan in exchange for RCA's engineering know-how. MITI felt that
if leading Japanese companies were working under such a contract, it would
be quite reckless for Totsuko to purchase only Western Electric's patent
rights.
Ibuka saw that
tape recorders had not penetrated the American consumer market as much as in
Japan. While tape recorders were beginning to permeate the
home market in Japan, in the U.S. they were being used mainly by stenographers
and news reporters. In fact, in no other country in the world
had the tape recorder gained such high popularity in the educational field
as in Japan. This was an outstanding achievement for Totsuko, which
was based on its painstaking development of the school market. Tape
recorders, which first appeared in schools as a teaching aid, had allowed
people access to a variety of cultural, musical, and other
activities. The social impact one can see today is immeasurable.
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