"Jerry Greenberg" wrote in message
om...
It is true that there will be a number of low cost models in the
market using CRT technology to fill the market place. But, the major
manufactures, such as Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, NEC, and Hitachi, plan
to discontinue CRT Monitors and TV sets by this fall coming.

Yes - but as I said, you're just talking about those Japanese
brands that most U.S. consumers have come to know over the
past couple of decades. Japan isn't the largest producer of CRTs
NOW, and has not been for quite some time - the bulk of CRTs
are made in Korea, Taiwan, and (small but growing) mainland
China, and these countries are also where the CRT monitors and
TVs will continue to come from. (Japan hasn't dominated the PC
monitor market, except for Sony's dominance of the very high end,
for a good number of years, and this is now being repeated in
television.) The problem is that, due to the poor economic
conditions in Japan through much of the 1990s, these manufacturers
could not afford to invest in maintaining and expanding their own
in-house production capacity for CRTs (or, for that matter, other
display technologies such as LCDs), and so the bulk of the worldwide
capacity wound up in these other countries. And it's difficult for
these companies to compete with those Korean/Taiwanese/etc.-based
firms who either have a local supply of the basic components (or
make them in-house) AND have their own domestic labor supply
at a much lower cost than the Japanese.

(And yes, this HAS happened in non-CRT technologies as well; the
biggest TFT-LCD panel makers in the world right now are
Samsung (Korea), LG Philips (Korea), AU Optronics (Taiwan),
Chungwha (Taiwan), etc.. With the notable exception of Sharp, there
has been very little investment by the Japanese in domestic LCD
production facilities, at least for the mainstream large-area technologies.
They have, instead, been trading technology know-how for a share
in the capacity of these other makers.)


Infact,
we were told that many of these companies are no longer producing the
tubes at this time, and when they run out, there will no longer be any
assembly of these CRT sets. This includes all sizes from 3/4 inches
(used in small viewfinders) up to the large 36 inch ones.

Right. But that concerns only these Japanese manufacturers.


There are many news releases that ALL major CRT production will not
exist in about 2 years time.

Please give your sources. I regularly visit these manufacturers, and
believe me, there is absolutely no way that CRT production will
cease in 2 years, or even 5. Unless, again, you believe that "major
CRT production" involves ONLY Japanese sources.

What IS happening is that the TV market is fragmenting into two distinct
pieces - in North America, Japan, and Europe, the market is essentially
saturated; just about everyone HAS a TV, and so new sales come
primarily from replacements or upgrades. In those markets, the non-CRT
technologies ARE going to start to take significant market share away from
the CRT - but that's not the whole picture. Emerging markets, such as
China and India, represent HUGE bases of potential customers, but these
people can't afford 42" high-definition LCD TVs - those markets will be
overwhelmingly CRT-based for a long, long time to come, and that means
that the CRT MUST remain available worldwide as the "entry-level" TV
technology.


I very strongly suggest you visit the links below.


Sorry, there's no news there that contradicts anything said above. The
Japanese are exiting the CRT market. Old news. The LCD is also
displacing the CRT in the desktop monitor market. Also old news.

(In fact, the LCD has ALREADY displaced the CRT in monitors - LCDs
went over the 50% mark in unit volumes last quarter, and will continue
to increase their share to somewhat over 80% by 2008.)

I've been following the display industry for about 20 years, and visit about
50-60 display manufacturers each year. I think I'm reasonably qualified to
make some statements regarding the near-term forecasts for these
markets...:-)


Bob M.