fasol.blog

50 years EU celebration in Tokyo

fasol — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 17:15:00 +0000

Today was the 50th anniversary of the treaty of Rome which was at the beginning of the European Union. In Tokyo we had a big party at the top of Roppongi Hills - 52nd floor. Here are some pictures...

Green Tokyo Tower on St. Patrick's Day

fasol — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 11:47:00 +0000

Tokyo Tower was illuminated in green color on St Patrick's Day:

3G Summit & Mobile Payment workshop

fasol — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 13:06:00 +0000

22-25 January 2007 MarcusEvans organized the "Global 3G Evoluation Forum" in Makuhari near Tokyo.

Speakers included:

Takanori Utano, Executive Vice-President and CTO of DoCoMo,
Takehiro Nakamura of NTT and Vice-Chairman of 3GPP
Jean-Pierre Bienaime, Chairman of the UMTS-Forum,
Gaston Ormazabal of Verizon Labs
and many other leading mobile communications managers from all over the world.

Jointly with Jan Larsson, General Strategy Manager of TeliaSonera International Carrier division, I chaired all sessions all day on Wednesday January 24, 2007.

On Monday, January 22, 2007, I held a three hour workshop about "Mobile Payment".

Ericsson Strategy & Technology Summit Tokyo

fasol — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 12:31:00 +0000

Eurotechnology's CEO was invited to attend Ericsson's Strategy & Technology Summit in Tokyo on November 15, 2006.

Ericsson's CEO, Carl-Henric Svanberg, Ericsson CSO - Chief of Strategy, Japan-CEO Rory Buckley and other Ericsson top management presented Ericsson's strategy and vision. About 100 investors and investment bank analysts were invited to attend.

I was given the opportunity to share the lunch table with CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg and had a fascinating discussion.

With some of the largest and most advanced mobile investments,
Japan's mobile market is one of the most important markets globally for Ericsson. Recently Ericsson won major contracts from SoftBank and eAccess/eMobile.

Briefing TeliaSonera top management

fasol — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 12:43:00 +0000

The day before the Finland-Japan Ubiquitous Society Conference in Tokyo, I briefed the top-management (CEO, CTO and other top managers) of TeliaSonera, on October 26, 2006.

The next day, October 27, 2006, the Finland-Japan Ubiquitous Society Conference was held. Tero Ojanpera, Exec VP and CTO of NOKIA, gave an overview of NOKIA's vision of communications, other speakers and panelists included Juho Lipsanen, Finland CEO of TeliaSonera, KDDI Chairman Murakami.

Panel discussion with TeliaSonera CEO Juho Lipsanen and KDDI-Chairman Murakami.

Japan's Mobile Phone Industry and u-Japan (Talk announcement)

fasol — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 07:27:00 +0000

Title: "Japan's Mobile Phone Industry and u-Japan"

Date and Time:
Thursday, 12th October 2006, 17:00-19:00

Location (tentative, please check closer to the date for changes):
Main Conference Room 4F, EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, Tokyo
Click for a map

Download PowerPoints of the presentation here:
(pdf-file, 50 pages, 19 figures, 12 photographs)

Agenda:

Japan's mobile phone and broad-band markets are about 3-6 years ahead of Europe: new services are typically invented or first brought to market in Japan, 3-6 years earlier than in Europe. Internet in Japan is generally much faster and much cheaper than in Europe. For this reason and because of it’s size, Japan’s telecom markets are full of opportunities for European companies with the right products and the right strategy, and for investors with the necessary knowledge.
Japan’s mobile phone industry is notoriously difficult to understand for Europeans because it’s
market logic is very different from Europe’s, and because the pace of innovation and structural change is much faster, and because of the language barriers.
This talk will explain the driving forces behind recent dramatic changes in Japan’s mobile telecom sector, and will explain new changes that the “ubiquitous-Japan” (“u-Japan”) policy will bring in the near future.
Do you need to know what Europe’s mobile phone and internet markets will look like in 2010 or 2015? – Come to this talk and you will get a good look into Europe’s IT future about 5 years ahead, as well as Japan’s telecom markets today.

Download detailed announcement and registration form:
Seminar invitation (pdf-file) Seminar invitation (MS-Word file)

Background

Following Vodafone's decision to end business in Japan and the announcement of the sale of Vodafone-Japan to SoftBank, this author has been asked to brief the Technology Attaches of the 25 EU Embassies in Tokyo on Japan's mobile phone and telecom sector (download the presentation as a pdf-file here).
The EU Technology Attaches were particularly interested in the impact on Europe by the termination of by far the biggest ever European investment in Japan. Clearly it is also important to determine, what other European companies can learn from Vodafone's experience.
Eurotechnology Japan KK has been awarded a contract by the European Union to benchmark Japan's telecom sector vs EU and make recommendations.

More about Japan's telecom sector:JCOMM report (pdf-file)

Ludwig Boltzmann - 100 Years

fasol — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 14:18:00 +0000

Ludwig Boltzmann (February 20, 1844 - September 5, 1906) is our company's founder's great grandfather - and one of our company's great inspiration. We are working hard to continue his tradition of innovation and excellence and diligent work.

Ludwig Boltzmann died exactly 100 years ago today, on September 5, 1906.

Ludwig Boltzmann worked in many different areas and found the first explanations for many phenomena. He did not just create one single invention, but he created very many.

Boltzmann is best known for his work in gas theory: using complex mathematical tools, many of which he had developed himself, Boltbmann linked the macroscopic "Entropy" of gases with the microscopic forces between atoms and molecules in gases. "Entropy" was initially just a useful macroscopic concept similar to temperature and pressure of a gas developed during the early days of industrialization in England to optimize steam engines. Boltzmann showed that Entropy is a much much deeper fundamental concept, and showed how Entropy is related to the collissions between atoms and molecules in a gas and that Entropy expresses the probability that a body is found in a certain state.

In Boltzmann's days, it was not generally accepted that atoms and molecules exist. Actually, in Vienna in those days, in order to survive socially, Boltzmann had to use very careful words: he usually did not say directly that he is convinced that atoms and molecules exist: he said that they are just a useful concept, whether they exist or not.

Ludwig Boltzmann was the last great classical physicist. He knew of several unexplained puzzles: Brown's motion, the discrete spectra of atoms, curvature of space, but he could not explain them with the classical methods he mastered. Today Boltzmann's methods, the Boltzmann constant, the
Boltzmann Equation and much of his work is used every day in telecoms, information technology, electronics, chemical industry and many other areas.

Read more about Ludwig Boltzmann...

SoftBank's flagship store

fasol — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 15:10:00 +0000

Yesterday (August 26, 2006) SoftBank opened the new Roppongi flagship store.

SoftBank's white/silver/grey colorscheme replaces Vodafone's bright red:

YAHOO and Google's mobile strategies

fasol — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 15:02:00 +0000

Japan is a couple of years ahead of Europe and US in mobile communications by most measures.

What are GOOGLE and YAHOO doing in Japan's mobile sector?

GOOGLE partnered with KDDI (Japan's No. 2 mobile operator with about 25 million mobile subscribers) to develop mobile search.

YAHOO-Japan made a large step forward when SoftBank acquired Vodafone's Japan operations in March this year.

SoftBank's latest mobile phones include a "Y" = YAHOO button:

Yesterday, August 26, 2006, SoftBank opened it's new flagship store in Tokyo-Roppongi including a YAHOO-Spot:

iPhone? iTunes/iPod phones?

fasol — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 08:02:00 +0000

There is a lot of discussions about whether Steve jobs is going to announce an iPhone or iPod-Phone at the Apple Computer Developer's Conference in SF - according to the headline report on Saturday May 13th, 2006 in Nihon Keizai Shinbun ( the world's largest business daily ) it's already known since May this year that Apple and SoftBank are developing such a joint mobile phone with iPod and iTunes functions.

On March 17 SoftBank announced the full acquisition of Vodafone's Japan subsidiary - the former J-Phone - jointly with YAHOO-Japan as a co-investor - so with about 15 million mobile subscribers in the world's most advanced mobile market (Japan), SoftBank/Apple will have the firepower to make such a phone a success, provided it's tuned to Japanese consumers' needs and dreams - my guess is that it probably will be.

By pure coincidence, the Apple/SoftBank headlines appeared one or two days after DoCoMo and Microsoft announced a music cooperation.

Apple/SoftBank iPod mobile phones coupled to iTunes could have quite a lot of impact on Japan's music industry: about 20% of Japan's music sales are to mobile phones. Of all music downloads in Japan about 6% are fixed line internet downloads, and 94% are music downloads to mobile phones: internet music downloads are almost neglibile in comparison to mobile phone music downloads.

Therefore even if iTunes has a huge market share in the fixed line internet world, iTunes cannot have much impact in Japan overall if limited to fixed line internet downloads. iTunes downloads to mobile phones will change the business models of Japan's music industry - at the moment music downloads to mobile phones cost a lot more than iTunes downloads. An iPod/iTunes music store could reshape the mobile music market in Japan.

M-Commerce towards US$ 100 billion

fasol — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 04:14:00 +0000

Mobile commerce (the mobile phone equivalent of mailorder) exceeded mobile content (music, weather, news, etc) first in 2004 in Japan and is on the way to reach US$ 100 billion in the not too distant future. Read more about Japan's m-commerce sector below.

US$ 0.5 Billion killer application for m-commerce?

We estimate that m-commerce (the mobile equivalent of mail order, or instant purchase of goods and services) has reached approximately US$ 10 billion per year in Japan, and most likely exceeds this mark already. Mobile phones are used in Japan to purchase many different types of products from music, to train tickets, air tickets, event tickets, books, and even cars. In our work for our customers we analyzed in detail a "killer application" for mobile commerce, where in Japan a single mobile website achieves about US$ 0.5 billion in annual sales.

read about mobile commerce (and the US$ 0.5 Billion/year killer m-commerce site...

SoftBank a small fry??

fasol — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 02:00:00 +0000

In my 20 years of business and work between US/Japan and EU/Japan, I am often surprised how Western executives underestimate economic size and strength of Japan and it's companies - here is another example: BusinessWeek writes about the SoftBank/iPod phone, and writes that former Apple executives say that Apple's CEO Steve Jobs wouldn't normally tie up with a small fry like SoftBank...

Is SoftBank really a small fry? Let's check it out:

1. Apple vs SoftBank revenues

Revenues of SoftBank + SoftBank Mobile (x-Vodafone KK) were on the order of YEN 2500 Billion (US$ 22 Billion) for the year ended March 2006. Revenues of Apple Computer were US$ 13.9 Billion for the year ended Sept 24, 2005. - So in terms of revenue the new SoftBank Group (including the recently acquired x-Vodafone KK) is almost twice as large as Apple Computer.

2. Apple vs SoftBank market capitalization

Market capitalization of Apple Computer was US$ 54.9 Billion on May 19, 2006. Market capitalization of SoftBank (US$ 28 Billion) plus SoftBank Mobile Corp (US$ 15 Billion) was on the order of US$ 43 Billion.

More about Japan's telecom industry sector in our JCOMM-Report

Panel Discussion to 200 Japanese Executives at the Industrial Club of Japan

fasol — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:03:00 +0000

May 30, 2006: at the Industrial Club of Japan

Panel discussion for about 200 Japanese CEOs and high level managers about the challenges of international business management.

The five panelists were:

James C Abbeglen
Allen Miner (CEO of Sunbridge Venture Habitat, and founder of Oracle Japan)
Kong Jian (China - Japan Economic Federation)
Koshiro Kitazato (Chairman of BT Japan)
Gerhard Fasol (CEO Eurotechnology Japan KK)

Wallstreet Journal "Leadership Question of the Week"

fasol — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:26:00 +0000

Wallstreet Journal, in the section "Leadership Question of the Week", on Monday June 12, 2006 on page 31, published an article I wrote about a very extraordinary experience I had several years ago at the German Embassy here in Tokyo, with Dr. Tachikawa - then CEO of NTT-DoCoMo (Dr. Tachikawa has sine then moved on to become the head of Japan's Space Agency).

Please find the unedited manuscript here (the actual published version was shortened a bit).

Leading in Asia:

What was the best business advice you received and who gave it to you?

The best business advice I received in Japan was from the former CEO of NTT-DoCoMo, Dr. Tachikawa - he taught me that when two parties do business, both parties have to profit/benefit - not just one party. He also taught me to go straight to the point, not waste time with irrelevant things.

Here the story in more details:

I had met Dr. Tachikawa at a reception at the German Embassy - purpose of the reception was to bring together German and Japanese leaders in telecommunications and mobile phones.

I noticed that Dr. Tachikawa, then CEO of DoCoMo, was standing for quite some time at the window, looking out into the beautiful garden of the Embassy with no one to talk to.

Why was Dr Tachikawa standing alone with no-one to talk to? My explanation was that the Japanese CEOs at this reception were mainly from DoCoMo's suppliers, and therefore probably too shy to talk to Dr Tachikawa since Japanese business customs places these suppliers on a lower social ranking than their major customer DoCoMo. On the other hand, the German CEOs who had come from Germany, probably did not know who it was who was standing lonely at the window.

So I approached Dr Tachikawa and we talked quite a while - all in Japanese.

His first question after the initial introduction was very surprising - Dr Tachikawa asked me, how our company makes money, where our income comes from.

Having been CEO of our Tokyo based company for the last 10 years, I am very often asked where our company's offices are located, how big our office is, how many people we employ and other irrelevant conversational detail., Dr. Tachikawa did not ask any of these irrelevant things - he went straight to the point: how do we make money. In my almost 10 years as CEO in 1000s of conversations, Dr Tachikawa was almost the only manager (Western and Japanese) who went straight to the point not losing time over irrelevant details.

A few days later I received an email from Dr Tachikawa inviting me to his office at DoCoMo's headquarters to discuss possibilities of cooperation between NTT-DoCoMo and our very small company Eurotechnology Japan KK which I had founded about 10 years ago here in Tokyo.
I was amazed by Dr Tachikawa's kindness. A few days later I spent about one hour in his office at the top floor of Sanno-Tower at DoCoMo's headquarters, right next to the Prime Minister's Office.

I had prepared four proposals and towards the end of our conversation I showed these four proposals to Dr. Tachikawa. He rejected three of them, and decided that DoCoMo was interested in one of my proposal.

I learn a lot from his way of action - he immediately took three decisions about the one proposal he was interested in:

1. he said that we must now find a way that both our company profit from this plan
2. he decided who within DoCoMo would be responsible to carry this project out with our company, and
3. he decided where the source of the budget for this project should be

I have been working 20 years with Japan now - and Dr. Tachikawa is certainly the Japanese manager I learnt most from, in the meetings I was lucky enough to have with him.

Best regards

Gerhard Fasol PhD
Eurotechnology Japan KK
http://www.eurotechnology.com/
http://fasol.com/

Blackberry comes to Japan (interview for Red Herring)

fasol — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 05:35:00 +0000

On June 8, 2006, DoCoMo and Research in Motion (RiM) announced that DoCoMo will start marketing RiM's BlackBerry to corporate customers from autumn 2006.

DoCoMo will offer a version of BlackBerry which will use wCDMA (FOMA) 3G network connection in Japan, and will also be able to operate on legacy GSM/GPRS networks which are still in common use in other parts of the world (there is no and there has never been any GSM network in Japan).

Read an article in Red Herring about BlackBerry coming to Japan,
and read our "eurotechnology.japan.blog" about BlackBerry coming to Japan.

30 Swedish Controllers / CFO's

fasol — Mon, 08 May 2006 01:48:00 +0000

April 24, 2006 was my Swedish Day: for breakfast I was invited to IKEA's opening party for their new store in Funabashi (I met even with the global Chairman of IKEA - that he attended the opening in Funabashi shows how seriously IKEA is taken the market entry to Japan) - we had done some IT work for IKEA.

Lunch and afternoon I spent with about 30 Swedish CFO's / controllers of some of the largest Swedish corporations, who had come to Japan on a study tour. These CFO's/Controllers were all working at companies in Investor AB's portfolio.

The Swedish controllers had asked for a briefing on Japan's telecom industry. Some of their companies are considering to start, re-start, or grow faster in Japan, so there were many detailed questions about business in Japan, what can go wrong, personell issues, experience of other multinationals, and of course a lot of questions about IKEA and Vodafone.

My presentation was similar to the presentation I had given on March 23, 2006 to the Technology Attaches of the Embassies of the 25 European Union countries, which lead the European Union to award our company a project contract about EU vs Japan benchmarking issues in telecoms and key technology areas.

Okaerinasai IKEA

fasol — Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:12:00 +0000

Today, Monday April 24, 2006 at 7:30am, IKEA invited about 300 guests to celebrate the opening of the first 100% IKEA-owned IKEA store in Japan. We had the honor of working for IKEA - IKEA is another company that "thinks different" in so many creative ways. We wish them all the best in Japan!

IKEA had attempted earlier to establish business in Japan via a joint-venture established in 1974. This Joint-Venture was terminated in 1986, and IKEA ended business in Japan in 1986. About 20 years later, this is now IKEA's second venture into Japan.

The photographs shows Mr Koshichi Fujishiro, the Mayor of the City of Funabashi, and Mr Gordon Gustavsson, Manager of the new IKEA Funabashi store sawing the traditional log. Witnessing the log sawing ceremony are Ms Akiko Domoto, Governor of the Chiba Prefecture, His Excellency, Mikael Lindstrom, the Ambassador of Sweden, Anders Dahlvig, CEO of the global IKEA Group and Tommy Kullberg, CEO of IKEA-Japan:

A JR-Keiyo Line train with IKEA logos passing the new IKEA store in Minami-Funabashi:

"Why Japan is several years ahead of Europe in telecoms..."

fasol — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 01:43:00 +0000

Today (March 23, 2006) I was invited to brief the Technology Attaches of the Embassies of the 25 European Union countries here in Tokyo about Japan's telecommunications sector (both fixed net and wireless) in a one hour presentation + discussion. I had offered several alternative topics and the conference of EU Technology Attaches selected the most provocative title I had offered:
"Why Japan is several years ahead of Europe in telecommunications and what Europe can do to catch up"

Vodafone KK's Chairman and former NTT-DoCoMo Vice-President Tsuda, who had worked 34 years at NTT and DoCoMo, said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that "Japan is way ahead in 3G". - therefore, although this title is clearly provocative, it's clearly worthwhile examining this question. With the sale of Vodafone KK to SoftBank last week, the timing of this briefing was particularly interesting. My presentation discussed the following questions:

- Is Japan ahead of Europe in Telecommunications?
- Why?
- What is the impact? Is this important?
- What Europe can do to catch up

Download a pdf-file with the slides of my presentation here (for current (2006) corporate customers, we offer this presentation free of charge (please contact us for your copy), for others the presentation is available for purchase)

Note added May 1, 2006: Our company Eurotechnology Japan KK has recently been awarded a contract by the European Union Government to examine benchmark issues of EU vs Japan in telecommunications and other key technology business areas.

On Germany's national network about FeliCa wallet phones and other mobile trends

fasol — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 07:34:00 +0000

Got interviewed about mobile FeliCa and other mobile trends in Japan by Germany's largest broadcasting network ARD:
read text of program here
listen to the broadcast here (in German)

Much of this broadcast is based on our presentation: "What's hot in mobile?"

3 hours in ... Kamakura (Wallstreet Journal)

fasol — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 09:44:00 +0000

(unedited original manuscript of an article printed in the Wallstreet Journal).

Guest guide Gerhard Fasol takes you to his favorite town in Japan.

Your Guide: Gerhard Fasol, Founder and CEO of Eurotechnology Japan KK, a group of hands-on Japan experts, who build and expand the Japan business for US and EU high-tech companies and vice-versa.

Where He’d Go: "I take a Yokosuka-Line JR-train to Kamakura, about 50 minutes from Tokyo. On the train I read the book “Kamakura – Fact and Legend" written by Japanese Countess Iso Mutsu (née Gertrude Ethel Passingham) around 1918.

What He’d Do: "From Kamakura station it's a 10 minute taxi ride to Houkokuji Zen temple founded in 1334 by Ashikaga Ietoki. I’ll walk up the narrow path to the temple, admiring the lush gardens and the moss. Near the back of the bamboo forest, I’ll order macha (Japanese green tea, made by whipping hot water and green tea powder with a special bamboo whisk). I'll sit on a bench under the red umbrellas, listen to the waterfall, watch the beams of light through the dense bamboo trees and recover my peace, away from Tokyo's intense life. It seems worlds away from the 30 million metropolis. I'll drive 15 minutes to Yuigahama beach, and if it's summer I'll take my kids for a swim on the shore of the Sagami Bay and drink a cocktail in one of the beach houses, while my kids eat kakikouri (shaved ice with syrup). To return we'll take the Enoden railway along the Shonan beach back to Fujisawa.

Why You Should Go: "Kamakura is a jewel and a lifetime is not enough to discover all of it's treasures. Today Kamakura is a city of art, history, tranquility and peace. It was not always so peaceful. You need to take a closer look to discover that it was also a place of ferocious fighting and many battles for power. Many artifacts in Kamakura, and warrior's graves, remind of Japan's "war of roses" 900 years ago – between the Minamoto (also called Genji) clan represented by white, and the Taira (or Heike) clan represented by the red color. In 1180 the victorious Yoritomo of the Minamoto clan set up his headquarters in Kamakura, which remained the focus of government - and the power struggles which come with it - for about 300 years. Gone are the horses and swords – since the Yokosuka railway opened for business in 1889, instead of warriors, about 17 million tourists invade Kamakura every year.

SANYO - NOKIA CDMA2000 JV (Interview for CNBC)

fasol — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 04:08:00 +0000

Was interviewed today about the announced JV between SANYO and Nokia for CDMA2000 phone handsets (I added some corrections here):

[Q1] How will Sanyo benefit from this, since they are the ones who have the technology, what do they hope to gain from working with Nokia? Or is this merely a way to reduce costs for the company, since it's struggling to remain profitable?

It is clear to me that NOKIA will benefit, since NOKIA needs 3G know-how from Japan because all markets where NOKIA is dominating are behind compared to Japan in 3G development, and also NOKIA needs a lot of other advanced technology from SANYO.

Of course who benefits depends both on the contract conditions and the relative strengths of the parties.

It's clear that financially NOKIA is the much stronger of the two. NOKIA is financially very strong, while SANYO is in a very weak position, so it's a very clever move for NOKIA.

[Q2] Is it already too late for Nokia to make such a move in the CDMA 2000 market, with strong players like Samsung, LG and Motorola already entrenched in the market?

I don't think it's too late - both Motorola and NOKIA demonstrated rebounds recently with new design initiatives such as Motorola's RAZR and NOKIA did a successsful turn-round by introducing clam-shell phones a trend which NOKIA had missed by not being linked sufficiently into Japan before.

To succeed you need to make spectactular phones which match consumer needs, and you need the financial and manufacturing power as well as the brand. The combination of SANYO's technology with NOKIA's financial strength and brand, as well as NOKIA's efficient supply chain are a good basis.

[Q3] When would you expect to see the benefits of such a move to emerge?

I think one should not underestimate the cultural risks. NOKIA and SANYO have extremely different corporate cultures, and we have seen many cases where corporate cultures lead to great difficulties.

I think the key will be to manage the difference in corporate cultures of two very proud companies. Locating the JV in the USA might help.

SONY-Ericsson has demonstrated that such a JV can be successful. In the case of SONY-Ericsson it has taken several years for the JV to succeed. If one takes SONY-Ericsson as a measure, then it might take a couple of years (3-4 years) for this JV to succeed. If it's faster than that it will be a positive surprise.

"Why are keitai so hot in Japan?"

fasol — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 09:29:00 +0000

Seminar announcement
The European Institute of Japanese Studies (EIJS Academy in Tokyo) of the Stockholm School of Economics will hold a seminar in Tokyo-Marunochi on Thursday, February 16, 2006:

Topic: "Why are Mobile Phones (Keitai) so hot in Japan? - and How European companies in all sectors can profit from Keitai"

Speaker: Gerhard Fasol

Agenda: Japan created the most passionate and most advanced mobile communications (keitai) market in the world. Recently, almost all innovations in mobile communications have been developed or brought to market first in Japan. Fasol's talk will explain why this is, and how European companies in all fields, from retail to publishing can profit by building keitais into their business models.

Date: Thursday, February 16, 2006

Time:
6.15 - 7.00 p.m. Drink and Snack (served before the lecture)
7.00 - 9.00 p.m. Lecture and Discussion

Place:
Marubiru Conference Square, Room 2 (Tel: 03-3217-7111)
8th floor of Marubiru, 2-4-1 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
One-minute walk from JR Tokyo Station, Marunouchi South Exit

Fee: JPY2,000 per person, payable at the door
Free for students, please bring your student ID
Free for those who are from sponsoring companies

Advance registration required: Please sign up (via email) or fax to (FAX 03-3212-1530) for the attention of Ms. Futagawa (EIJS Tokyo Office.)

About Tokyo Stock Exchange Turbulence on CNBC and RedHerring

fasol — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 05:43:00 +0000

Wednesday January 18, 2006 I was interviewed live on CNBC's "Worldwide Exchange" news program about the turbulence on the Tokyo Stock Exchange following lower than expected quarterly earning reports by Intel, Yahoo and IBM, and a sell-off of Livedoor shares. Here is a summary of what I said in the interview:

Overall I am very optimistic for Japan's economy, and I expect that the stock markets will recover soon.

There are short-term issues, mid-term issues and long-term issues.

Short-term, there is impact by Intel's lower than expected results in the semiconductor sector, especially on Tokyo Electron, which shares also dropped substantially. However I think that the strong drop in share values on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) was much more an effect of the Livedoor issues than disappointment with the US high-tech results.

The Livedoor issues are temporary and not significant for the bigger picture in Japan, and will be resolved very soon by the Police, Stock Exchange and the other relevant authorities. I don't expect long-term impact. There may be some changes in rules concerning M&A.

Concerning the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE): the capacity of the TSE seems to be around 4 million transactions/day, and the Chairman of the TSE stopped trading when the transaction volume started coming close to this limit. This shows the IT limitations of the TSE. This would be less serious if it was an isolated incident, however during the last year there have been several IT related incidents, such as the incident where erroneously 600,000 shares were sold at a price of 1 YEN, instead of one single share for YEN 600,000, which caused huge losses, and was not caught by the trading software, and there have been a number of similar glitches recently. So clearly the IT infrastructure needs improvement. However, from what I have seen in Japan, I expect now a lot of serious committee work, and I expect that the IT systems will be fixed in due course - I am very confident about that.

So overall I think Japan will come stronger out of these temporary issues.

Regarding the question of human issues vs technology on the Stock Exchange, I think both human issues and IT are important and both must be working well.

see also some articles, where I was asked to help:

Red Herring "Livedoor fallout expands" (January 18, 2006)

Red Herring "Livedoor scandal turns fatal" (January 19, 2006)

About SANYO (CNBC and Wallstreet Journal)

fasol — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 05:50:00 +0000

Wednesday Nov 16, 2005, I was interviewed live on CBNC's Asia Market Wrap with Christine Tan about SANYO's plans to sell it's financial division. Some of my friends asked me what I sad in this program - so here is my transcript from memory.

Here is roughly what I said:

Fundamentally I am very hopeful for SANYO. SANYO has some fantastic technologies and makes many fantastic electronics products. For example, SANYO makes some of the most fantastic mobile phones here in Japan for KDDI, and I heard just today that SANYO phones came top in customer satisfaction in the USA. Mr Kawahara at Kenwood and Mr Ghosn at Nissan and Ripplewood at Shinsei Bank have shown that it is possible to turn round Japanese companies in a very short time. What NISSAN, Ripplewood and Shinsei did, was to concentrate on their essential core business, on their strengths and sell or spin out all non-essential businesses. Nissan used to be in Aerospace and real estate business and lots of other areas which have nothing to do with cars. In the same way, I see much hope for SANYO, if SANYO focusses totally on core strengths and technologies.

On the other hand, we have a corporation here with about US$ 20 billion in sales making US$ 1 billion loss last year and US$ 2 billion loss this year. So we clearly have an unstable situation. SANYO must take drastic action to sell non-essential assets and it's in this light that SANYO has plans to sell the financial business, which is essentially a general banking operation which is not at all SANYO's core business and strength.

Christine Tan: "So which business areas do you think SANYO should sell"

GF: I am of course in no position to tell SANYO management what to do, however their steps to sell non-core assets is certainly a good start. Looking at Kenwood, Nissan and Shinsei Bank and many others I can see many examples where excellent management has turned around Japanese companies in a very short time. I am confident that with the right management this can also be done at SANYO.

See also: article in Wallstreet Journal about SANYO

For general review see: presentation at Stanford University

This photograph shows SANYO's famous "Solar Arc" in a snow storm on December 18, 2005 (SANYO's Solar Arc can be seen on the right hand side of the Shinkansen train line from Tokyo to Osaka, a few kilometers before reaching Kyoto).

"XBox 360 Lounge" in Tokyo/Aoyama

fasol — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 05:28:00 +0000

XBox has not yet achieved the breakthrough in Japan's competitive game markets - and Microsoft is relentlessly working to make XBox a success in Japan.

Here some pictures of the new "XBox 360 Lounge" in Tokyo/Aoyama: