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by lesterbuck 5456 days ago
I giggled when I realized that the author of this piece was in a hurry, and almost certainly thinks that Heroku is a Japanese company.

"Marc Benioff, the boss of Salesforce.com, a large 'cloud computing' firm in Silicon Valley, sees opportunities everywhere in Japan. Over the past year the company paid $212m for Heroku, which develops web services based on Ruby, and acquired stakes in Synergy Marketing, Uhuru and Netyear, three business-software firms."

With a name like Heroku, news that Matz is joining Heroku, and Heroku doing Ruby in the cloud, it is an easy mistake on deadline to conclude that Heroku is a Japanese company. The other three companies mentioned are all actually Japanese companies.
1 comments
jamesteow 5456 days ago
Well that and the language (like their database offerings) and overall visual design of Heroku imply that it's a Japanese company.
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psykotic 5456 days ago
Really? Suppose you went to a website for a similar kind of company but with a prominent Wild West theme, sheriff stars for buttons and products called Lasso and Six-Shooter. If I had to guess, I'd say that company was anything but American. Heroku's website oozes fanboy kitsch in much the same way. The difference is that a lot more technologists are Japanophiles than wannabe cowboys, so we don't notice as much and just lap that shit up.
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jamesteow 5456 days ago
Yeah you make a point. Same could be said about Outback Steakhouse.
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psykotic 5456 days ago
On that note, I remember going to Black Angus Steakhouse when the first restaurant in Korea opened at Gangnam-yeok, Seoul. The greeters at the door wore cowboy-style outfits with handkerchiefs around their necks and enormous hats that almost swallowed them up. As customers entered, they would sing out an awkwardly pronounced "Howdy, partner!" in unison. Then, rather incongruously, they would bow in the customary Korean fashion.

Now, I haven't ever been to a Black Angus in the US, but I'm guessing they don't ham it up there nearly as much. :)

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georgieporgie 5456 days ago
The irony is that real Japanese company websites look nothing like Heroku. :-)

http://www.rakuten.co.jp/ http://www.biccamera.com/ http://www.sony.co.jp/

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jamesteow 5456 days ago
Well that depends.

straightline.co.jp has plenty of Japanese websites that have a variety of visual designs.

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