A Comparison of Japan, USA and Europe to identify risk of Deflation in USA and Europe (Comparing Symptoms in Economist, Nov 7, 2002)

	Japan	USA	Europe
Size of Asset-Price Bubble	++	++	+
Corporate Overinvestment	++	++	-
Risk of Deflation	++	+	+
Large Private-Sector Debts	++	++	++
Weak Banking System	++	-	+
Several Structural Rigidities	++	-	+
Political/ Social Paralysis	++	-	+
Shrinking/ Aging Population	++	-	++

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'Convergence' is taking two distinct forms:

a) Device Convergence: Devices becoming 'Digital Swiss Army Knives'. For example, there are cell phones acting as PDAs, cameras, Internet Access devices, music players etc.

b) Information Convergence: Same information is available across devices. For example, same song can be accessed by home audio system, car music system and the portable music player. I think that the following developments have added significantly to this trend
b1) Ubiquity of Internet access - through wired (phone, cable, LANs etc.) as well as wireless infrastructure (bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc.)
b2) Standardization of information formats - such as XML
b3) Device Agnostic Applications - developed using platforms such as Java

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Infotainment Convergence and Corporations' Initiatives (from The PC's New Tricks by David Kirkpatrick in Fortune, Oct 28, 2002)

Sony VAIO: VAIO Stands for Video and Audio Integrated Operations. Sony has given this name to its range of devices (like desktops, laptops) whose designs try to capitalize on the trend of convergence of consumer electronics and computers.

Microsoft dotNet: This refers to Microsoft's strategy to encourage programmers to develop systems that run not only on compuetrs but on almost any device such as cars, watches, stereos, TVs, refrigerators etc. Through this, for example, a communication between car and TV is possible whereas a message can be popped up on the TV whenever new brakes need to be put in the car.

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