Any thoughts of Friday fun and frolics were put aside this morning upon waking to news of the huge earthquake off Japan.

Watching the rolling news coverage of this monster quake and its aftermath, it's apparent that even for a technologically advanced country like Japan, with its world-class earthquake preparedness, this is a devastating event.

My thoughts immediately turned to all of the Japanese companies that are household names for us in print: Canon, Fuji, Fuji-Xerox, Horizon, Komori, Konica Minolta, Mitsubishi, Miyakoshi, Ricoh, Ryobi, Sakurai, Screen... the list goes on.

Some of these companies certainly have facilities in the affected areas of the country. Precise news is difficult to obtain at the moment for obvious reasons, here's hoping that none of our industry colleagues have been caught up in the worst of it.