Toshiba
Encyclopedia
is a multinational
electronics
and electrical equipment
corporation
headquartered in Tokyo
, Japan
. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and materials, power systems, industrial and social infrastructure systems, and household appliances.
In 2009, Toshiba was the world's fifth-largest
personal computer
vendor (after Hewlett-Packard
, Dell
, Acer and Lenovo). Toshiba is also one of the world's 20 largest manufacturers of semiconductors.
The first, Tanaka Seisakusho
(Tanaka Engineering Works), was Japan's first manufacturer of telegraph equipment and was established by Tanaka Hisashige in 1875.
In 1904, its name was changed to Shibaura Seisakusho
(Shibaura
Engineering Works). Through the first part of the 20th century Shibaura Engineering Works became a major manufacturer of heavy electrical machinery as Japan modernized during the Meiji Era and became a world industrial power.
The second company, Hakunetsusha
, was established in 1890 and was Japan's first producer of incandescent electric lamps. It diversified into the manufacture of other consumer products and in 1899 was renamed Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric).
The merger in 1939 of Shibaura Seisakusho and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura
Denki (Tokyo Shibaura Electric) . It was soon nicknamed Toshiba, but it was not until 1978 that the company was officially renamed Toshiba Corporation.
The group expanded strongly, both by internal growth and by acquisitions, buying heavy engineering and primary industry firms in the 1940s and 1950s and then spinning off subsidiaries in the 1970s and beyond. Groups created include Toshiba EMI (1960), Toshiba International Corporation (1970's) Toshiba Electrical Equipment (1974), Toshiba Chemical (1974), Toshiba Lighting and Technology (1989), Toshiba America Information Systems (1989) and Toshiba Carrier Corporation (1999).
Toshiba is responsible for a number of Japanese firsts, including radar (1942), the TAC digital computer (1954), transistor television and microwave oven (1959), color video phone
(1971), Japanese word processor (1978), MRI system (1982), laptop personal computer (1986), NAND EEPROM (1991), DVD (1995), the Libretto
sub-notebook personal computer (1996) and HD DVD
(2005).
In 1977, Toshiba merged with the Brazilian company Semp (Sociedade Eletromercantil Paulista), forming Semp Toshiba.
In 1987, Tocibai Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba, was accused of illegally selling CNC milling machine
s used to produce very quiet submarine
propellers to the Soviet Union
in violation of the CoCom
agreement, an international embargo
on certain countries to COMECON
countries. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk
. The incident strained relations between the United States
and Japan
, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two senior executives, as well as the imposition of sanctions
on the company by both countries. The US had always relied on the fact that the Soviets had noisy boats, so technology that would make the USSR's submarines harder to detect created a significant threat to America's security. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said "What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million."
, one of the world's largest OEM
consumer video electronic makers and suppliers, to manufacture and supply finished consumer TV and video products for Toshiba to meet the increasing demand for the North American market. The contract ended in 2008, ending 7 years of OEM production with Orion.
In December 2004, Toshiba quietly announced it would discontinue manufacturing traditional in-house cathode ray tube
(CRT) televisions. In 2006, Toshiba terminated production of in-house plasma TVs. Toshiba quickly switched to Orion as the supplier and maker of Toshiba-branded CRT-based TVs and plasma TVs until 2007. To ensure its future competitiveness in the flat-panel digital television and display market, Toshiba has made a considerable investment in a new kind of display technology called SED
.
Before World War II
, Toshiba was a member of the Mitsui Group
zaibatsu
(family-controlled
vertical monopoly). Today Toshiba is a member of the Mitsui keiretsu
(a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings), and still has preferential arrangements with Mitsui Bank and the other members of the keiretsu. Membership in a keiretsu has traditionally meant loyalty, both corporate and private, to other members of the keiretsu or allied keiretsu. This loyalty can extend as far as the beer
the employees consume, which in Toshiba's case is Asahi
.
In July 2005, BNFL
confirmed it planned to sell Westinghouse Electric Company
, then estimated to be worth $1.8bn (£1bn). The bid attracted interest from several companies including Toshiba, General Electric
and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
and when the Financial Times
reported on January 23, 2006 that Toshiba had won the bid, it valued the company's offer at $5bn (£2.8bn). The sale of Westinghouse by the Government of the United Kingdom surprised many industry experts, who questioned the wisdom of selling one of the world's largest producers of nuclear reactors shortly before the market for nuclear power was expected to grow substantially; China
, the United States
and the United Kingdom
are all expected to invest heavily in nuclear power. The acquisition of Westinghouse
for $5.4bn was completed on October 17, 2006, with Toshiba obtaining a 77% share, and partners The Shaw Group
a 20% share and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. a 3% share.
In late 2007, Toshiba's logo replaced the former Discover Card logo on one of the screens atop One Times Square
. It displays the iconic New Year's countdown on its screen, as well as messages, greetings, and advertisements for the company.
In January 2009, Toshiba acquired the HDD business of Fujitsu
.
Toshiba also manufactures small home appliance
s, most notably fully automatic digital rice cooker
s.
at CEATEC
2010. This system supports 3D capability without glasses (integral imaging system of 9 parallax images with vertical lenticular sheet as used in Philips' Dimenco). The retail product 20" GL1 and 12" GL1 was released in December 2010.
On February 19, 2008, Toshiba announced that it was to drop its format in the HD DVD 'war' with Sony and Pioneer-backed Blu-ray Disc
devices. Following a review of its business, Toshiba said it would stop production of HD DVD players and recorders.
The HD DVD format had suffered as most of the major US film studios backed the Blu-ray format, which was developed by Sony, Panasonic, Philips and others. Toshiba's President, Atsutoshi Nishida, announced "We concluded that a swift decision would be best [and] if we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win".
Toshiba continued to supply retailers with machines until the end of March 2008, and continued to provide technical support to the estimated one million people worldwide who owned HD DVD players and recorders. Toshiba has announced a new line of stand-alone Blu-ray players as well as drives for PCs and laptops, and has announced its intention to join the BDA, the industry body which oversees development of the Blu-ray format.
The HD DVD versus Blu-ray battle has been likened to the VHS versus Betamax war
of the 1980s.
(UPS) to design a more efficient repair process. Customers are told to drop off their laptops at a UPS Store, from which they will be shipped to Toshiba for repairs and then sent back to the customer. The laptops are in fact shipped off to an authorized UPS-run repair facility in Louisville, Ky, where UPS repairs the laptops themselves and ships them back to the customer directly.
Toshiba has been making efforts to lessen their impact on the environment. In March 2008, they tied for first place in Greenpeace
’s seventh edition of its Guide to Greener Electronics that ranks electronics companies according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Toshiba received 7.7 points out of ten points possible, showing its improvement in recycling and chemical use since the last edition when it was only ranked number six. Toshiba focused on improving their score in Individual Producer Responsibility (IPR), which measures how efficiently a company deals with e-waste that is created from their own products that are thrown away.
In Greenpeace
’s Guide to Greener Electronics from November 2011 Toshiba ranked joint 13th (alongside LGE) out of 15 leading electronics manufacturers. In the revised edition the company benefited from having 2 penalty points lifted, one for backtracking on a commitment to make its new products PVC and BFR free by 2010, and the other for misleading its customers and Greenpeace by not admitting it would not meet this commitment. Despite this, Toshiba still scored badly, performing worst on the Energy section where it was criticized for not having a clean energy strategy and for not providing external verification of data on its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The company fared better on Sustainable Operations being praised for providing data on its global recycling rates for TVs and PCs alongside a detailed breakdown. It was noted for having a detailed chemicals management programme and providing estimates of GHG emissions from each stage of a product’s lifecycle for its whole range of products.
Toshiba reports that all of its new LCD TVs comply with the Energy Star
standards and 34 models exceed the requirements by 30% or more.
Toshiba also partnered with China’s Tsinghua University in 2008 in order to form a research facility to focus on energy conservation and the environment. The new Toshiba Energy and Environment Research Center is located in Beijing where forty students from the university will work to research electric power equipment and new technologies that will help stop the global warming process. Through this partnership, Toshiba hopes to develop products that will better protect the environment and save energy in China. This contract between Tsinghua University and Toshiba originally began in October 2007 when they signed an agreement on joint energy and environment research. The projects that they conduct work to reduce car pollution and to create power systems that don’t negatively affect the environment.
On December 28, 1970 Toshiba began the construction of unit 3 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant which was damaged in the Fukushima I nuclear accidents on March 14, 2011. In April 2011 CEO Norio Sasaki declared nuclear energy would "remain as a strong option" even after the Fukishima I nuclear accidents.
On 22 April 2010, the French newspaper Humanity criticized the social practices of the company, in its efforts to maintain a contract with the French State with the support of the latter. The principal charge carried by the daily newspaper is:
Within the framework of the revival program of Nicolas Sarkozy, the companies having a contract
with the State are held to maintain full employment.
Toshiba, with its contract of the Union of the groupings of open-market purchase (Ugap), under the
aegis of the French State, would have cut its manpower and an expert of the Secafi cabinet
speaks even about waves of dismissals.
On 24 May 2010, after further investigation, the French newspaper Libération reported a link with the UMP party in this political and economic business: Despite the fact that this whole thing was disputed by the National French labour inspectorate, the dismissal of an opponent is confirmed by the Ministry of Labour. Liberation published: "This is embarrassing for a group which largely benefits from the state and public account orders". Xavier Darcos, still Minister of Labour at that time, ignored the opinion of his collaborators and authorized the dismissal of a Union delegate even before the investigation report was submitted to him. The Libération newspaper made the point by announcing that the Director of Human Resources from Toshiba Systems France is an elected member of UMP party.
See also section in French language wiki for more details.
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
and electrical equipment
Electrical equipment
Electrical equipment includes any machine powered by electricity. They usually consists of an enclosure, a variety of electrical components, and often a power switch...
corporation
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
headquartered in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and materials, power systems, industrial and social infrastructure systems, and household appliances.
In 2009, Toshiba was the world's fifth-largest
Market share of leading PC vendors
Because the personal computer is an iconic high tech product the market share of leading PC vendors is watched closely. Market discussion of these devices may include netbooks but do not include media tablets which was dominated by Apple products....
personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
vendor (after Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, Dell
Dell
Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...
, Acer and Lenovo). Toshiba is also one of the world's 20 largest manufacturers of semiconductors.
19th and 20th centuries
Toshiba was founded by the merging of two companies in 1939.The first, Tanaka Seisakusho
Tanaka Seisakusho
was the first company established by Hisashige Tanaka, one of the most original and productive inventor-engineers during the Tokugawa / Edo Period. Established in 1875, it was the first Japanese company to manufacture telegraph equipment...
(Tanaka Engineering Works), was Japan's first manufacturer of telegraph equipment and was established by Tanaka Hisashige in 1875.
In 1904, its name was changed to Shibaura Seisakusho
Shibaura Seisakusho
was the new name given to the company Tanaka Seisakusho , after it was declared insolvent in 1893 and taken over by Mitsui Bank....
(Shibaura
Shibaura
is a district of Minato ward located in Tokyo, Japan. The district is located between the eastern side of the Yamanote Line train and Tokyo Bay.Shibaura is the home to a number of major Japanese corporations including Toshiba and Oki...
Engineering Works). Through the first part of the 20th century Shibaura Engineering Works became a major manufacturer of heavy electrical machinery as Japan modernized during the Meiji Era and became a world industrial power.
The second company, Hakunetsusha
Hakunetsusha
was a company established by Shoichi Miyoshi and Fujioka Ichisuke, two of Japan's industrial pioneers during the Tokugawa / Edo Period. It specialized in the manufacture of light bulbs....
, was established in 1890 and was Japan's first producer of incandescent electric lamps. It diversified into the manufacture of other consumer products and in 1899 was renamed Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric).
The merger in 1939 of Shibaura Seisakusho and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura
Shibaura
is a district of Minato ward located in Tokyo, Japan. The district is located between the eastern side of the Yamanote Line train and Tokyo Bay.Shibaura is the home to a number of major Japanese corporations including Toshiba and Oki...
Denki (Tokyo Shibaura Electric) . It was soon nicknamed Toshiba, but it was not until 1978 that the company was officially renamed Toshiba Corporation.
The group expanded strongly, both by internal growth and by acquisitions, buying heavy engineering and primary industry firms in the 1940s and 1950s and then spinning off subsidiaries in the 1970s and beyond. Groups created include Toshiba EMI (1960), Toshiba International Corporation (1970's) Toshiba Electrical Equipment (1974), Toshiba Chemical (1974), Toshiba Lighting and Technology (1989), Toshiba America Information Systems (1989) and Toshiba Carrier Corporation (1999).
Toshiba is responsible for a number of Japanese firsts, including radar (1942), the TAC digital computer (1954), transistor television and microwave oven (1959), color video phone
Videophone
A videophone is a telephone with a video screen, and is capable of full duplex video and audio transmissions for communication between people in real-time...
(1971), Japanese word processor (1978), MRI system (1982), laptop personal computer (1986), NAND EEPROM (1991), DVD (1995), the Libretto
Libretto (notebook)
The Libretto is a line of subnotebook computers designed and produced by Toshiba. The line was distinguished by its combination of functionality and small size, squeezing a full Windows PC into a device the size of a hardback book. The first model, the Libretto 20, was released on April 17, 1996,...
sub-notebook personal computer (1996) and HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
(2005).
In 1977, Toshiba merged with the Brazilian company Semp (Sociedade Eletromercantil Paulista), forming Semp Toshiba.
In 1987, Tocibai Machine, a subsidiary of Toshiba, was accused of illegally selling CNC milling machine
Milling machine
A milling machine is a machine tool used to machine solid materials. Milling machines are often classed in two basic forms, horizontal and vertical, which refers to the orientation of the main spindle. Both types range in size from small, bench-mounted devices to room-sized machines...
s used to produce very quiet submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
propellers to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in violation of the CoCom
CoCom
CoCom is an acronym for Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls. CoCom was established by Western bloc powers in the first five years after the end of World War II, during the Cold War, to put an arms embargo on COMECON countries.CoCom ceased to function on March 31, 1994, and the...
agreement, an international embargo
Embargo
An embargo is the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country, in order to isolate it. Embargoes are considered strong diplomatic measures imposed in an effort, by the imposing country, to elicit a given national-interest result from the country on which it is...
on certain countries to COMECON
Comecon
The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance , 1949–1991, was an economic organisation under hegemony of Soviet Union comprising the countries of the Eastern Bloc along with a number of communist states elsewhere in the world...
countries. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk
Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace
Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace , one of two operating companies of Kongsberg Gruppen of Norway, is a supplier of defence and space related systems and products, mainly anti-ship missiles, military communications, and command and weapons control systems for naval vessels and air-defence applications...
. The incident strained relations between the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two senior executives, as well as the imposition of sanctions
Economic sanctions
Economic sanctions are domestic penalties applied by one country on another for a variety of reasons. Economic sanctions include, but are not limited to, tariffs, trade barriers, import duties, and import or export quotas...
on the company by both countries. The US had always relied on the fact that the Soviets had noisy boats, so technology that would make the USSR's submarines harder to detect created a significant threat to America's security. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania said "What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million."
21st century
In 2001, Toshiba signed a contract with Orion ElectricOrion Electric
is a Japanese consumer electronics company, and it was established in 1958 at Osaka, Japan. It is based in the city of Echizen, Fukui Prefecture, Japan. Original products manufactured were transistor radios, radio cassette recorders, car stereos, and music centers...
, one of the world's largest OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer
An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
consumer video electronic makers and suppliers, to manufacture and supply finished consumer TV and video products for Toshiba to meet the increasing demand for the North American market. The contract ended in 2008, ending 7 years of OEM production with Orion.
In December 2004, Toshiba quietly announced it would discontinue manufacturing traditional in-house cathode ray tube
Cathode ray tube
The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms , pictures , radar targets and...
(CRT) televisions. In 2006, Toshiba terminated production of in-house plasma TVs. Toshiba quickly switched to Orion as the supplier and maker of Toshiba-branded CRT-based TVs and plasma TVs until 2007. To ensure its future competitiveness in the flat-panel digital television and display market, Toshiba has made a considerable investment in a new kind of display technology called SED
Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display
A surface-conduction electron-emitter display is a display technology which is currently developing various flat panel displays by a number of companies as a electronic visual displays. SEDs use nanoscopic-scale electron emitters to energize colored phosphors and produce an image...
.
Before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Toshiba was a member of the Mitsui Group
Mitsui
is one of the largest corporate conglomerates in Japan and one of the largest publicly traded companies in the world.-History:Founded by Mitsui Takatoshi , who was the fourth son of a shopkeeper in Matsusaka, in what is now today's Mie prefecture...
zaibatsu
Zaibatsu
is a Japanese term referring to industrial and financial business conglomerates in the Empire of Japan, whose influence and size allowed for control over significant parts of the Japanese economy from the Meiji period until the end of World War II.-Terminology:...
(family-controlled
Family business
A family business is a business in which one or more members of one or more families have a significant ownership interest and significant commitments toward the business’ overall well-being....
vertical monopoly). Today Toshiba is a member of the Mitsui keiretsu
Keiretsu
A is a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings. It is a type of business group. The keiretsu has maintained dominance over the Japanese economy for the greater half of the twentieth century....
(a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings), and still has preferential arrangements with Mitsui Bank and the other members of the keiretsu. Membership in a keiretsu has traditionally meant loyalty, both corporate and private, to other members of the keiretsu or allied keiretsu. This loyalty can extend as far as the beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
the employees consume, which in Toshiba's case is Asahi
Asahi Breweries
Asahi Breweries, Ltd. is a leading brewery and soft drink company based in Tokyo, Japan. The company has a 40% share of the Japanese beer market....
.
In July 2005, BNFL
BNFL
British Nuclear Fuels Limited was a nuclear energy and fuels company owned by the UK Government. It was a former manufacturer and transporter of nuclear fuel , ran reactors, generated and sold electricity, reprocessed and managed spent fuel , and decommissioned nuclear plants and other similar...
confirmed it planned to sell Westinghouse Electric Company
Westinghouse Electric Company
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is a nuclear power company, offering a wide range of nuclear products and services to utilities throughout the world, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control and advanced nuclear plant designs...
, then estimated to be worth $1.8bn (£1bn). The bid attracted interest from several companies including Toshiba, General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
, or MHI, is a Japanese company. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi Group.-History:In 1870 Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi took a lease of Government-owned Nagasaki Shipyard. He named it Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works, and started the shipbuilding business on a full scale...
and when the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
reported on January 23, 2006 that Toshiba had won the bid, it valued the company's offer at $5bn (£2.8bn). The sale of Westinghouse by the Government of the United Kingdom surprised many industry experts, who questioned the wisdom of selling one of the world's largest producers of nuclear reactors shortly before the market for nuclear power was expected to grow substantially; China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
are all expected to invest heavily in nuclear power. The acquisition of Westinghouse
Westinghouse Electric Company
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC is a nuclear power company, offering a wide range of nuclear products and services to utilities throughout the world, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control and advanced nuclear plant designs...
for $5.4bn was completed on October 17, 2006, with Toshiba obtaining a 77% share, and partners The Shaw Group
The Shaw Group
The Shaw Group is a Fortune 500 corporation headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As of February 27, 2011, the company employed approximately 28,000 people all over the world with 7 billion dollar revenue in 2010...
a 20% share and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. a 3% share.
In late 2007, Toshiba's logo replaced the former Discover Card logo on one of the screens atop One Times Square
One Times Square
One Times Square is a 25 story, 395 foot high skyscraper at 42nd Street and Broadway in Times Square....
. It displays the iconic New Year's countdown on its screen, as well as messages, greetings, and advertisements for the company.
In January 2009, Toshiba acquired the HDD business of Fujitsu
Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information technology equipment and services company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is the world's third-largest IT services provider measured by revenues....
.
Toshiba also manufactures small home appliance
Home appliance
Home appliances are electrical/mechanical machines which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. Home appliances can be classified into:*Major appliances, or White goods*Small appliances, or Brown goods...
s, most notably fully automatic digital rice cooker
Rice cooker
A rice cooker or rice steamer is a container or kitchen appliance dedicated to cooking rice. Rice can also be cooked in general-purpose saucepans.-Overview:...
s.
Operations
Toshiba is organised into the following principal divisions and subsidiaries:- Digital Products Group
- Digital Products and Services Company (consumer & professional electronics: TV, PC, cell phone, etc.)
- Network & Solution Control Center
- Toshiba TEC Corporation
- Electronic Devices & Components Group
- Semiconductor & Storage Products Company
-
-
- Discrete Semiconductor Division
- Analog & Imaging IC Division
- Logic LSI Division
- Memory Division
- Storage Products Division
- Center For Semiconductor Research & Development
- ODD Division
- Toshiba Mobile Display Co., Ltd. (This company will be merged with Hitachi Displays, Ltd. and Sony Mobile Display Corporation to form Japan Display Inc. in Spring of 2012.)
- Infrastructure Systems Group
- Power Systems Company (Combined-cycle gas power plants, nuclear power plants, hydro-electric power plants, and associated components)
- Nuclear Energy Systems & Services Division
- Westinghouse Electric CompanyWestinghouse Electric CompanyWestinghouse Electric Company LLC is a nuclear power company, offering a wide range of nuclear products and services to utilities throughout the world, including nuclear fuel, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control and advanced nuclear plant designs...
(Acquired October 2006) - Thermal & Hydro Power Systems & Services Division
- Power and Industrial Systems Research and Development Center
- Social Infrastructure Systems Company
- Transmission & Distribution Systems Division
- Railway & Automotive Systems Division
- Railway Systems Division
- Automotive Systems Division
- Motor & Drive Systems Division
- Automation Products & Facility Solution Division
- Defense & Electronic Systems Division
- Environmental Systems Division
- Toshiba Elevator and Building Systems Corporation
- Toshiba Solutions Corporation
- Toshiba Medical Systems Corporation
- Toshiba Consumer Electronics Holdings Corporation (home appliances)
- Toshiba Home Appliances Corporation
- Toshiba Lighting & Technology Corporation
- Harison Toshiba Lighting Corporation
- Toshiba Carrier Corporation
- Others
- New Lighting Systems Division
- Smart Community Division
- Materials & Devices Division
-
3D television
In October 2010, Toshiba announced Toshiba Regza GL1 21" LED backlit LCD TV glasses-free 3D prototype3D television
A 3D television is a television set that employs techniques of 3D presentation, such as stereoscopic capture, multi-view capture, or 2D-plus-depth, and a 3D display – a special viewing device to project a television program into a realistic three-dimensional field.- History :In the late-1890's,...
at CEATEC
CEATEC
Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies is an annual trade show in Japan. It is regarded as the Japanese equivalent of Consumer Electronics Show...
2010. This system supports 3D capability without glasses (integral imaging system of 9 parallax images with vertical lenticular sheet as used in Philips' Dimenco). The retail product 20" GL1 and 12" GL1 was released in December 2010.
HD DVD
On February 19, 2008, Toshiba announced that it was to drop its format in the HD DVD 'war' with Sony and Pioneer-backed Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
devices. Following a review of its business, Toshiba said it would stop production of HD DVD players and recorders.
The HD DVD format had suffered as most of the major US film studios backed the Blu-ray format, which was developed by Sony, Panasonic, Philips and others. Toshiba's President, Atsutoshi Nishida, announced "We concluded that a swift decision would be best [and] if we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win".
Toshiba continued to supply retailers with machines until the end of March 2008, and continued to provide technical support to the estimated one million people worldwide who owned HD DVD players and recorders. Toshiba has announced a new line of stand-alone Blu-ray players as well as drives for PCs and laptops, and has announced its intention to join the BDA, the industry body which oversees development of the Blu-ray format.
The HD DVD versus Blu-ray battle has been likened to the VHS versus Betamax war
Videotape format war
The videotape format war was a period of intense competition or "format war" of incompatible models of consumer-level analog video videocassette and video cassette recorders in the late 1970s and the 1980s.- Overview :...
of the 1980s.
Laptop repairs
After becoming aware that some customers felt that the repair process for broken laptops was too long, Toshiba partnered with the United Parcel ServiceUnited Parcel Service
United Parcel Service, Inc. , typically referred to by the acronym UPS, is a package delivery company. Headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, UPS delivers more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 220 countries and territories around the...
(UPS) to design a more efficient repair process. Customers are told to drop off their laptops at a UPS Store, from which they will be shipped to Toshiba for repairs and then sent back to the customer. The laptops are in fact shipped off to an authorized UPS-run repair facility in Louisville, Ky, where UPS repairs the laptops themselves and ships them back to the customer directly.
Environmental record
E-waste is something that negatively affects the environment due to improper discard of items such as computers, DVD players, and cell phones. Most e-waste is hazardous to the environment because of its tendency to release toxic materials, such as lead and mercury, into soil and water, which later affect human, animal, and vegetation health.Toshiba has been making efforts to lessen their impact on the environment. In March 2008, they tied for first place in Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
’s seventh edition of its Guide to Greener Electronics that ranks electronics companies according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. Toshiba received 7.7 points out of ten points possible, showing its improvement in recycling and chemical use since the last edition when it was only ranked number six. Toshiba focused on improving their score in Individual Producer Responsibility (IPR), which measures how efficiently a company deals with e-waste that is created from their own products that are thrown away.
In Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
’s Guide to Greener Electronics from November 2011 Toshiba ranked joint 13th (alongside LGE) out of 15 leading electronics manufacturers. In the revised edition the company benefited from having 2 penalty points lifted, one for backtracking on a commitment to make its new products PVC and BFR free by 2010, and the other for misleading its customers and Greenpeace by not admitting it would not meet this commitment. Despite this, Toshiba still scored badly, performing worst on the Energy section where it was criticized for not having a clean energy strategy and for not providing external verification of data on its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The company fared better on Sustainable Operations being praised for providing data on its global recycling rates for TVs and PCs alongside a detailed breakdown. It was noted for having a detailed chemicals management programme and providing estimates of GHG emissions from each stage of a product’s lifecycle for its whole range of products.
Toshiba reports that all of its new LCD TVs comply with the Energy Star
Energy Star
Energy Star is an international standard for energy efficient consumer products originated in the United States of America. It was first created as a United States government program during the early 1990s, but Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and the European Union have also adopted...
standards and 34 models exceed the requirements by 30% or more.
Toshiba also partnered with China’s Tsinghua University in 2008 in order to form a research facility to focus on energy conservation and the environment. The new Toshiba Energy and Environment Research Center is located in Beijing where forty students from the university will work to research electric power equipment and new technologies that will help stop the global warming process. Through this partnership, Toshiba hopes to develop products that will better protect the environment and save energy in China. This contract between Tsinghua University and Toshiba originally began in October 2007 when they signed an agreement on joint energy and environment research. The projects that they conduct work to reduce car pollution and to create power systems that don’t negatively affect the environment.
On December 28, 1970 Toshiba began the construction of unit 3 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant which was damaged in the Fukushima I nuclear accidents on March 14, 2011. In April 2011 CEO Norio Sasaki declared nuclear energy would "remain as a strong option" even after the Fukishima I nuclear accidents.
Social practices in France
On 22 April 2010, the French newspaper Humanity criticized the social practices of the company, in its efforts to maintain a contract with the French State with the support of the latter. The principal charge carried by the daily newspaper is:
Within the framework of the revival program of Nicolas Sarkozy, the companies having a contract
with the State are held to maintain full employment.
Toshiba, with its contract of the Union of the groupings of open-market purchase (Ugap), under the
aegis of the French State, would have cut its manpower and an expert of the Secafi cabinet
speaks even about waves of dismissals.
On 24 May 2010, after further investigation, the French newspaper Libération reported a link with the UMP party in this political and economic business: Despite the fact that this whole thing was disputed by the National French labour inspectorate, the dismissal of an opponent is confirmed by the Ministry of Labour. Liberation published: "This is embarrassing for a group which largely benefits from the state and public account orders". Xavier Darcos, still Minister of Labour at that time, ignored the opinion of his collaborators and authorized the dismissal of a Union delegate even before the investigation report was submitted to him. The Libération newspaper made the point by announcing that the Director of Human Resources from Toshiba Systems France is an elected member of UMP party.
See also section in French language wiki for more details.