Manufacturing Quality

Michelle Settle wrote:

If I remember correctly, the first Japanese luxury cars were the Acura and
the Toyota Cressida.


I think you're absolutely right about Acura being out before Lexus. As
for the Cressida, I was thinking more of "prestige" badges.

Acura makes a heck of a good car.

"Newps" wrote in message . ..
:
:
: Matt Whiting wrote:
:
:
:
: We'll see. They haven't so far these last 30 years.
:
:
: They haven't had any thing close to a full-size truck until fairly
: recently.
:
: I understand that, but they have competed against the big three in the
: small pickup market since the 70's and have had their ass handed to them
: all that time.

#2 Toyota has "had their ass handed to them?" Sounds like they are doing a fine job picking their battles so they end up
winning the war...

In article ,
".Blueskies." wrote:

"Newps" wrote in message
. ..
:
:
: Matt Whiting wrote:
:
:
:
: We'll see. They haven't so far these last 30 years.
:
:
: They haven't had any thing close to a full-size truck until fairly
: recently.
:
: I understand that, but they have competed against the big three in the
: small pickup market since the 70's and have had their ass handed to them
: all that time.

#2 Toyota has "had their ass handed to them?" Sounds like they are doing a
fine job picking their battles so they end up
winning the war...

Yep, Toyota profits are 39% over last year.
Did any of the big three show positive results?

"B A R R Y" wrote in message
...
Michelle Settle wrote:

If I remember correctly, the first Japanese luxury cars were the Acura
and the Toyota Cressida.


I think you're absolutely right about Acura being out before Lexus. As
for the Cressida, I was thinking more of "prestige" badges.

I don't know what would define "prestige", but the Cressida was over $25K
when most of the others were in the high $teens to low $20K's. I think it
had something to do with the price quotas or something that were imposed in
the early 1980's. I wonder if the Cressida was a predecessor of the Lexus
line?

Acura makes a heck of a good car.

Yes, they're very nice, but over priced. An Acura TL is just a Honda Accord
with another $5,000 tacked on the price.

Michelle

"john smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
".Blueskies." wrote:

"Newps" wrote in message
. ..
:
:
: Matt Whiting wrote:
:
:
:
: We'll see. They haven't so far these last 30 years.
:
:
: They haven't had any thing close to a full-size truck until fairly
: recently.
:
: I understand that, but they have competed against the big three in the
: small pickup market since the 70's and have had their ass handed to
them
: all that time.

#2 Toyota has "had their ass handed to them?" Sounds like they are doing
a
fine job picking their battles so they end up
winning the war...

Yep, Toyota profits are 39% over last year.
Did any of the big three show positive results?

The traditional "big three" is now a misnomer. More appropriate is the
"shrinking three."

On Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:27:12 GMT, john smith wrote in
:

With the news that Piper will produce the Hondajet, I am wondering if
Piper will be able to produce the finished product to meet Honda's
quality standards.
Piper has not built anything bigger than a Malibu for 20 years.
The Cheyenne IV/LS-400 was the biggest aircraft Piper has produced.



Here's the latest word from Honda:


Honda Update - The World Wide Honda E-Mail newsletter
Tuesday, August 8, 2006. Direct from Tokyo, Japan.

- - - - - Honda Corporate News - - - - -


1) Honda Aircraft Company, Established
New Honda Subsidiary Will Market and Produce HondaJet in the U.S.

http://world.honda.com/news/2006/c06...rcraftCompany/

TOKYO, Japan, August 8, 2006 - Honda announced that is has
established a wholly-owned subsidiary, named Honda Aircraft
Company, which will be responsible for the further development,
sales promotion and production of the innovative HondaJet.
The new company will be based in a facility at the Piedmont Triad
International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina, where the
prototype HondaJet was assembled and flight tests have been carried
out for more than 3 years.

Michimasa Fujino, the chief engineer who has led development of
HondaJet and spent the past 20 years in Honda’s aviation activities
with Honda R&D Co., Ltd., will be assigned as the president and CEO of
Honda Aircraft Company, and prepare for the full operation start of
the new company from October.

Honda Aircraft Company will begin taking sales orders for HondaJet
this fall, with the goal of delivering the first mass production
HondaJet in 2010. In addition, the company will develop the production
version of HondaJet, pursue and hold both type certification and
production certification, and conduct marketing activities for the
aircraft. The company also will manage Honda’s new alliance with
Piper Aircraft, Inc., which will collaborate on sales and service. The
goal of this alliance is to provide a new level of sales and service
to meet the needs of jet customers with the goal of setting a higher
standard for the quality of the ownership experience.

HondaJet features several innovations that help it achieve far better
fuel efficiency, larger cabin and luggage space and higher cruise
speed than conventional aircraft in its class. The result of 20 years
of aviation research, key HondaJet innovations include a patented
over-the-wing engine-mount configuration, a natural-laminar flow (NLF)
wing and fuselage nose, and an advanced all-composite fuselage
structure.

("john smith" wrote)
Yep, Toyota profits are 39% over last year.
Did any of the big three show positive results?


Yes. GM ...after eating a (huge) one-time charge for buyouts, etc.


Montblack

("Michelle Settle" wrote)
If I remember correctly, the first Japanese luxury cars were the Acura and
the Toyota Cressida.


Then there was this little "Luxury" car fiasco ...with an Acura(Honda)
Legend drivetrain to boot!

http://www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?sterlingf.htm
Sterling US history

Some would conside the late 70's "Z" cars luxurious. g

http://members.aol.com/KarlWS/zhistory.html
"1979 - An all-new, second-generation Z-car is developed, debuting as the
280-ZX. The 280-ZX offers a higher level of luxury to meet the growing
demands of the sports car customer. Named Motor Trend’s “Import Car of the
Year” for 1979, the 280-ZX sets the all-time sales record for the Z line
with 86,007 units sold. The Z-car captures its 10th consecutive SCCA
C-Production national championship. Don Devendorf wins another IMSA GTU
title for Datsun."


Montblack

Marketing Advertising.

MS has marketed to the IT people in those governments and corporations,
and that's why they have that market share.

MS only does a little bit of marketing to the general public through ads
(although they do have some, even TV commercials). Most of their marketing
is done through VAR programs with PC Makers, ensuring that Windows XP or
Media Center or whatever is the OS of choice on their PC when they sell it
to you.

The rest of their marketing is in the form of their loyal highly technical
followers, specifically the ones who are subscribers to their developers
network. These folks have been toying around with the next versions of
their products ahead of the pack, making them feel special and important.
But most of them are also running the IT departments at companies around
the world, and when it's time to pay for a PC, they are going to ensure
that those purchases have the cool toys that they have been playing with
on their MSDN CD. It is a very fad driven marketing approach, but it seems
to be working for them.

How much advertising has MS done for Vista? Yet how much have you read
about it in Time, BusinessWeek, or any other magazine or newspaper? If you
haven't seen it, it just means you're not in tune. And if you're not in
tune, you're probably not technically sophisticated enough to change
whatever OS is on your PC when you leave Walmart with it, so they don't
really need to convince you to buy their product anyway...

I think Apple is confused in thinking that they should be mass marketing
their product if they are trying to take on MS. Their heyday was when they
started niche marketing to the education and graphics arts sectors,
because that's the only time they ever got back any significant market
share from MS. It's tough to guage for sure from their new ad campaign,
but I don't think that you are correct in your assesment of their plans.
I think they are changing gears and focusing on being a hardware
manufacturer. I think their retail outlets compete moreso with Gateway and
Dell then they do with MS. Otherwise they would have been better off
making an Intel version of their OS so that PC users who like Mac could
easily run Mac software on their Dells and Gateways...

In fact, that's Mac's biggest problem anyway. They would be more
successful if they spawned off the software and hardware divisions into
two companies and made each one easily pluggable with the other as well as
with the other's competitors. Maybe that's the direction they are headed,
and this Windows on my Mac campaign is the start, but I don't really buy
it.

While I have personal and business reasons for disliking Microsoft and
some of their policies, I believe their Marketing Model is one of the most
pointed, thorough, and excellent models that can be found today. They
basically market their product to the masses through a sophisticated
combination of fad marketing, distribution incentives, developer support,
and product compatibility. They don't mass-market their product directly,
and yet it is the most widely used product in its class. As a result they
have created a barrier to entry so strong that even free OSes barely
impact their market share...

After all, do you think Garmin's decision to use Windows CE as the OS on
the GPS in your plane was based on the "Start Me Up" commercials? (he
said, in a sad last-ditch attempt to get this back on aviation topic!)

Jonathan Goodish wrote in
:

In article ,
Judah wrote:
Actually, several companies, including Dell and IBM, tried to market
PCs with

Linux on them instead of Windows. OS/2 failed, not for quality. Even
Apple had to give in to the MS OS wars, with their new ads that
indicate their new Macs run Windows...

Microsoft has competition. They're just better marketers.

Not really. When's the last time you saw a Windows ad? The reality is
that Microsoft is basically a monopoly--whether you might consider it to
be de facto or government-sanctioned. When governments and companies
mandate a Windows-only standard, that effectively shuts out all other
competition. When folks buy home PCs, they buy what's being used at
work.

Even back in the days before Windows, when PCs ran MS-DOS, Apple was
being displaced in the home as more companies issued PCs to the grunt
workforce, despite the fact that Apple's machines were still heavily
used in education.

Apple knows that they have a much better mouse trap with Mac OS X.
Their retail stores are their best marketing effort yet, and they've
been producing positive results in market share. Apple is in no way
"giving in" to Microsoft by advertising that Macs can run Windows; just
the opposite, they are using that advantage as a marketing tool to
remove the "risk" out of investing in a Mac. If you buy a Mac and don't
like OS X, you can still run Windows. Apple is betting that not many
Macs will be running Windows as their primary operating system, and I
suspect they are right.



JKG

Bob Noel wrote in
:

In article , "Morgans"
wrote:

I realize Macs are superior buildwise and OSwise.

???

Do some reading about chip speed, and operating speed, and you will
wonder why you wrote that.

Are we forgetting about the difference between RISC and CISC and
pipelines?


Are you saying it takes less time to write an EMail on a Mac than it does on
a PC?

Or are you saying that the Mac can improve broadband throughput rates as
compared to a PC?