Visionary Interview
Visionary Interview MASAAKI OSUMI Masaaki Osumi, Executive Officer, Corporate Senior Vice President, President and CEO, Digital Products & Services Company, joined Toshiba Corporation in 1978. In 2001, he was made Senior Manager of the DVD Department, Visual Media, Network Division, Digital Media Network Company and, in 2007, he was named Deputy Vice President of the TV Division. In 2008, he became Vice President of the TV Division. In 2009, he was promoted to Executive Officer, Corporate Vice President, President and CEO, Digital Media Network Company and Vice President of the TV Division before taking up his current post in April 2011. PRODUCT FOCUS With a high-resolution 10.1-inch diagonal wideview LED-backlit display, Toshiba’s Thrive Tablet Towards A Better Life Energy management is the key to a manageable future Interview by Gary Smith In his keynote this morning, Masaaki O s u m i , To s h i b a ’s E x e c u t i v e O ff i c e r, Corporate Senior Vice- President, President and CEO of Digital Products & Services Company, Toshiba Corporation, will share his vision for a better world through a new kind of relationship between the digital home and energy... is designed for surfing the Internet, watching movies, playing games and reading books. Engineered with adaptive display technology, the screen adjusts brightness and contrast to the surrounding light conditions, negating the need to squint to see the screen. The tablet is built around the world’s first mobile super-chip — NVIDIA Tegra 2 — which offers extreme multitasking with the first mobile dual-core processor, along with faster browsing, hardware-accelerated Adobe Flash, and consolequality gaming and higher-definition video with an NVIDIA GeForce GPU. The Thrive also features a slip-resistant, rubberised surface. IFA 2011 Opening Keynote Date: 2 nd September Time: 09:45 - 10:30 h Location: International Keynote Area, Hall 6.3 Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, my country has a new mission — to build a better life. And I believe that Toshiba can contribute to achieving this with its vision of a new symbiotic relationship between energy generation and domestic power consumption. I was very shocked by the unprecedented disaster of the earthquake. I felt deeply the threat presented by nature, as well as the difficulty of living in symbiosis with nature. But I was also shocked by the power shortage that followed the earthquake. I suddenly realised that I, along with many other Japanese, take electricity for granted — and we shouldn’t. I understand that many reports outside Japan focused on how orderly and well organised the Japanese people were in facing the disaster. But, in fact, batteries and LED lighting disappeared from retailers as people rushed to buy them. Against this backdrop, and with the whole country in power-saving mode, Toshiba decided to launch, Masaaki Osumi Executive Officer, Corporate Senior Vice-President, President and CEO of Digital Products & Services Company, Toshiba Corporation countrywide, TVs that incorporate batteries and peak-shift PCs with software that can shift power usage from AC to battery during peak power times. W i thin To shiba, our digital-products business has been co-operating even more closely with our power systems and infrastructure systems businesses, preparing total package solutions ranging from digital products to infrastructure for energy management. Since the earthquake, I strongly feel that functions and technologies for energy management will be a new area of competition. 16
Visionary Interview “I suddenly realised that I, along with many other Japanese, take electricity for granted — and we shouldn’t” Toshiba has been directly involved in the efforts to limit damage in Fukushima. Can you tell us more about this? Immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake, Toshiba set up a special task force, which works 24/7 to help maintain the integrity of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power stations. Toshiba dispatched more than 100 engineers to these plants to provide vital technical support and to work with other companies to develop solutions. A major project is the integration and installation of a water-treatment system, which is key to the on-going stabilisation efforts of the Fukushima site. The system is designed to significantly reduce the radioactive contamination level of the water used for the cooling process of the reactors. Toshiba is both a heavy e l e c t r i c a l - e q u i p m e n t manufacturer and a CE manufacturer. Does this give you a better understanding of how it all comes together? Yes it does. In order to create a sustainable society, energy management at the global level is a very important factor. Toshiba Corporation is a rare company in that it covers the four energy processes: generation, delivery, control and usage. By not separating heavy electrical equipment and consumer electronics, we believe that we can provide products and services that mix the best of these four processes. From this perspective, Toshiba believes that, as an eco-company, we can contribute to creating a low carbon society and help to secure highly efficient energy generation. You say your mission is to ‘build a better life’. What form will this take? Previously, before the Great East Japan Earthquake, when we talked about building a better life, the emphasis was more on material enjoyment. This was also true in the digitalproducts area, where we pursued convenience and fun for personal use. But since the earthquake, I feel strongly that the Japanese people’s mindset has changed and that the real way to achieve a better life is to live in symbiosis with the Earth. In this respect, I believe Toshiba can play an important role in digital products and services, providing not only convenience and fun, but contributing to a more sustainable society through energy management. How do you see the future for Japan? And how does the roadmap for Toshiba fit into this? The Japanese people are said to be joined by strong bonds and to cherish a sense of community. However, as a leading economy and one that enjoys a material culture, the importance of such bonds has weakened over the years, as has our community spirit. This e a r t h q u a k e w a s a n opportunity for all Japanese people to once again recognise the importance of what we have forgotten. A major part of this realisation has come from the support that we received from friends all over the world, including Germany, which made us see what a strong global bond we have. From now on, in order to create a sustainable society, an important factor will be ‘kizuna’ — the bond. In terms of product development, Toshiba has been leading the way in glasses-free 3D. Could tell us more? Toshiba believes that it is essential to bring the TV experience to life in order to add immediacy and realism — and delivering images in 3D is one way of doing this. The innovation of glasses-free 3DTV not only offers dynamic, stunning image depth and high image quality, but it also produces a heightened viewing experience that engages and captivates viewers. Going forward, the technology has the potential to be used in many industrial and domestic applications. We launched the world’s first glasses-free 3D TV last December, and it has received a lot of positive attention from consumers and other stakeholders. It demonstrates Toshiba’s intense commitment to visual technology and innovation. We will continue to draw on the synergies in our semi-conductor and image processing technologies Glasses free 3D-TV ZL2 in order to position our TVs at the cutting-edge of technology. What importance does IFA hold for Toshiba? Toshiba has participated in IFA since its early years and has a very long relationship with the event. As IFA is one of the world’s largest c o n s u m e r- e l e c t r o n i c s shows, it is an important opportunity for companies around the world, including Toshiba, to unveil their leading-edge technologies. In addition, Europe is the largest market for digital products in terms of units and has a very high level of customer understanding when it comes to digital products. As a result, it is a very important market — and the opportunity to share our latest technologies with Europe is therefore very important for Toshiba. Hall 21 Stand 101 Toshiba Press Conference www.ifa-international.org IFA International • Friday 2 nd September 2011 17
