The late U.S. politician Tip O'Neill once famously remarked, "All politics is local." In some sense, the thought holds true for globe-spanning technologies like optoelectronics. An optoelectronic product may find a buyer anywhere in the world, but it matters very much where it was made and why in terms of personal, corporate, and national economics. In Asia, the market strength and variety of products purchased from abroad, manufactured for internal consumption, or exported have made it the most dynamic optoelectronics location on the planet.

We're highlighting this market because it matters to companies within Asia, especially in China, that want to integrate more with the outside world, and it matters to companies in North America and Europe who want to expand their own operations in the region. Much of the inspiration for this supplement came from a discussion with Kathleen Perkins, CEO of Breault Research Organization, an optical-design software company that has already seen and wants to see more of the benefits of operating in Asia. Other contributions, large and small, were made by DenseLight Semiconductors, Edmund Industrial Optics, KMI, Merchant & Gould, Newport, North China Research Institute of Electro-Optics, Photon Associates, and Shenzhen Secom Telecom.

So this supplement is a mixture of technology trends, business insights, and market data, but we all know that is the nature of doing business in the global—or local—marketplace.

W. Conard Holton
Executive Editor
cholton@pennwell.com