日本家電業界之規格競爭－以VTR、DVD與次世代DVD為例

二次大戰後，日本家電企業向歐美學習先進技術，將所學應用於產品之創新與開發上，並因此獲得了急速的成長。之後於80年代時超越美國，居於世界領先地位。　　進入80年代後，日本家電企業間的競爭更加白熱化，最具代表性的就是SONY的Beta與日本Victor的VHS兩種規格的錄放影機間的規格競爭。這兩者間的競爭也成為了日後無數次規格競爭的開端。在眾多的家電規格競爭中，VTR、DVD、次世代DVD此三種同為家用AV器材之規格，用途相近且具連貫性，並對家電業界的影響極大，故本論文以上述三種規格作為案例，試圖探討日本企業在家電業界規格競爭中的勝利模式。本文整理上述各階段的發展過程，將各陣營的推廣戰略及其成員變化加以比較，以得知各企業在規格競爭中所扮演的角色，並將其標準化與商品普及的戰略作一分析。另外，由於台灣、中國與日本地緣相近，並且在產業的特徵上有互補之效果，本文亦將台灣、中國在日本家電產業規格競爭中的地位加以分析比較。　　藉由研究結果可知，要在家電規格競爭中獲得勝利，第一，儲存媒體的容量是技術面的關鍵。第二，支援廠商越多越好，特別是掌握媒體內容的電影產業最為重要。第三，在保留與前世代產品的相容性的同時，也要具有大幅度超越前代產品的創新功能，才能獲得支援廠商和消費者的青睞。另一方面，日本家電企業在規格成為標準後，其領先地位常因技術的普及化而被擁有低價大量生產能力的台灣、中國等新興國家所超越。日本企業面對此狀況有三種解決方案。第一，轉為提供核心零件的方式，在產品普及的同時以必備零件的提供來保持獲利。第二，在消費者可接受的前提下，以加密等方式來保護智慧財產權。第三，與台灣企業合作共同投資中國市場，透過台灣企業的協調性，將日本的開發能力與中國的生產能力結合，以達到三贏的局面。

關鍵字

規格競爭；標準化戰略；家電產業； VTR ； DVD ；次世代DVD ；藍光

並列摘要

After World War II, Japanese electric appliance enterprises learned advanced technology from the West and achieved rapid growth during the 1980's. The competitions among Japanese electric appliance enterprises were getting intense at the same time. A format war describes competition between mutually incompatible proprietary formats. Within the history of the format war, VTR, DVD, and Next Generation DVD were the most famous cases. Therefore, in this research, I'll use these cases to find out how Japanese enterprise can become advantageous in a format war and use case studies to find the reason of how to make a format become the de facto standard of electric appliance industry. Through the research of these cases, we can tell there are three main factors that enterprise can dominate in a format war. First, the size of capacity is the most significant factor impacting the result of a format war. Secondly, the strategic alliances are the key to victory; studio alliances especially are the most important alliances in a format war. Thirdly, electric appliance manufacturers should concentrate on keeping the new format's compatibility with the former products. At the same time, the new format should have brand new innovative features to gain the support from alliances and be accepted by consumers. On the other hand, after the format becomes the de facto standard, Japanese electric appliance enterprises are usually surpassed by Taiwanese manufacturers or China manufacturers. Therefore, Japanese enterprises should focus on the alliance with Taiwanese enterprises. In this case, Japanese enterprises can strengthen their abilities such as marketing in China and personnel management from Taiwanese enterprises, while at the same time, they can gain the ability for mass production from China to create a win-win-win situation among Japan, Taiwan and China.