ABSTRACT
Software is Meganet's energy that pulses through the network, providing Meganet's operating instructions and the information that flows through its circuits. On the one hand, handcrafted software is an affirmation of the role of human skills and imagination in expanding the potential of computerized devices. On the other, it is also an obstacle to progress in the Meganet age, when computer-based systems depend on the technological and economic efficiencies of new software development. Other firms, both the old-timers and the new challengers, have also leveraged Meganet and its software resources to gain advantages in fiercely competitive markets abroad. The country's electronics sector is dominated by lumbering conglomerates that are better at producing high-quality electronic hardware; software remains a secondary concern. Thus, a new kind of Japanese entrepreneurship might be needed, one that appreciates software's primacy in the today's economic environment.
