日本因何丧失电子业霸主地位?

During a business trip to Japan in 2004, technology analyst Michael Gartenberg caught a glimpse of Sony Corp.'s Librie, the first e-reader to use electronic ink displays now common in today's devices.
2004年，科技分析师迈克尔•加滕伯格(Michael Gartenberg)在日本出差时偶然看到索尼公司(Sony Corp.)的电子阅读器Librie。它是第一款采用电子墨水显示屏的电子阅读器，如今这种显示屏已被普遍应用于电子阅读器。

Mr. Gartenberg was impressed with the lightweight design and long battery life and brought it back to the U.S., seeing it as a harbinger of a new wave of products.
Librie机身轻盈，而且电池续航时间长，给加滕伯格留下了深刻印象，于是他把这部阅读器带回了美国，把它视为新一波电子产品的前兆。

But there were problems with the Librie. The software was in Japanese. It required a computer to download a book. The selection was limited, and books were only available for 60-day rental.
但是，Librie也存在一些问题，比如说它的软件是日文的，下载电子书还得用电脑，而且它提供的选择非常少，电子书只能租看60天时间。

Sony stopped selling the Librie in 2007 - the same year that Amazon.com Inc. sparked the e-reader boom with the Kindle, a wireless device with a large selection of e-books and an easy-to-use download service. Now Sony is playing catch-up with its successor device, the Reader, which ranked a distant third in the global market, with just 5% share in 2011, according to research firm IDC.
后来，索尼在2007年停售Librie，也就是在这一年，亚马逊公司(Amazon.com Inc.)凭借Kindle引发了电子阅读器热潮。Kindle具有无线上网功能，有一大批电子书可供选择，而且其下载服务也简便易用。如今，索尼正凭借其电子阅读器Reader追赶竞争对手。据国际数据公司(IDC)统计, Reader在全球市场的份额位列第三，远远落后于前两名，其在2011年的全球市场份额只有5%。

'Even though the first device definitely pointed the way to the future, it's a market that got away from Sony,' said Mr. Gartenberg, research director at technology research firm Gartner Inc. 'Others have far more successfully capitalized.'
身为科技行业研究公司Gartner研究总监的加滕伯格称，尽管（索尼的）第一部电子书阅读器明确指明了通向未来的发展道路，但如今这个市场却不是由索尼主导，其他企业从中所获得的利益已经远远超过了它。

It is a story that has played out repeatedly over the last 20 years for Japan's once-world-dominant electronics firms. During that period, Japanese companies have beaten rivals to the market with hardware breakthroughs - from flat-panel televisions to advanced mobile phones. But in each case, foreign rivals have cashed in by delivering faster improvements, integrating the products with intuitive software and online services, cutting costs more deftly, and delivering a smarter marketing message.
过去20年来，这样的故事不断地在日本曾经称霸于世的电子产品公司身上上演。在这期间，日本企业在硬件方面的突破胜过了竞争对手，从平板电视到高端手机均是如此。然而，在这两项业务中，它们的海外竞争对手通过实现更快速的技术改进、在产品中集成直观简便的软件和在线服务、更巧妙地削减成本和推出更灵活的营销信息而大赚特赚。