Month: October 2004

  • Interview with Businessweek Editor David Rocks about Masayoshi Son and Japan’s telecom sector

    Interview with Businessweek Editor David Rocks about Masayoshi Son and Japan’s telecom sector

    Businessweek Editor David Rocks: “if you would meet Masayoshi Son, what would you ask him? by Gerhard Fasol Businessweek Editor David Rocks came three weeks to Japan to report on Japan’s telecommunications and technology sectors, arrived Friday and took me for dinner Friday night. A few days later David Rocks called me during my lunch…

  • Prepaid phones to be outlawed in Japan (see update below!)

    The government coalition in Japan is preparing a law to outlaw prepaid mobile phones. The reason given is that too many prepaid phones are used for crimes, e.g. the “ore ore” fraud. The number of prepaid phones in Japan is very small, but it’s not equally distributed. DoCoMo has almost no prepaid users, and has…

  • SonyEricsson design team presentation & discussion

    The SonyEricsson mobile phone design team gave a very impressive presentation of their work at the Swedish Embassy yesterday. Here is Art Director Mr Kawagoi, who created the famous SonyEricsson logo, explaining the messages contained in his creation: Here Swedish Managers of the SonyEricsson Creative Design Center from Lund/Sweden: My conclusion: expect a lot more…

  • Version 8 of the "i-Mode report"

    Completed version 8 of the “i-Mode Report” (260 pages, 45 figures, 120 photographs, and 25 tables) Main changes and additions: updated most statistics and graphs added a section on mobile games on i-mode updated the international section updated the 3G section updated the i-mode-FeliCa wallet-phone section corrected many errorsupdated the section on Japan’s telecom landscape:…

  • Ig Nobel Prize for Peace to the inventor of Karaoke

    Ig Nobel Prize for Peace to the inventor of Karaoke

    There is a saying the that the Prophet is not recognized within his/her own country – and I think that the inventor of Karaoke, Inoue Daisuke (井上 大佑) is not as famous in his own country as he deserves – but he was now recognized for his outstanding invention by the “Ig Nobel Prize” committee…

  • Vodafone not so big in Japan – The Economist says

    Vodafone not so big in Japan – The Economist says

    The Economist looks at Vodafone’s real situation in Japan’s very advanced and hyper-competitive telecommunications market Vodafone not so big in Japan: Vodafone is struggling to catch up with Docomo’s introduction of 3G in Japan An article in The Economist about Vodafone is partly based on our analysis: Vodafone not so big in Japan: “Vodafone- Not…

  • Prepaid mobile phones in Japan…

    Prepaid mobile phones are a huge business in Europe. In Japan prepaid mobile phone numbers are tiny, and NTT’s new CEO just announced that NTT-DoCoMo is planning to stop offering prepaid mobile phones altogether. Find detailed statistics and market shares per operator for Japan’s prepaid market in our report on Japan’s telecommunications sector. Copyright·©1997-2013 ·Eurotechnology…

  • Cable & Wireless Japan acquired by Softbank???!!

    Cable & Wireless Japan acquired by Softbank???!!

    Cable & Wireless Japan staged what it said was one of the first “hostile” takeovers in Japan, but then proved to be unable to manage the company they had acquired by Gerhard Fasol On October 26, 2004, Softbank announced the acquisition of Cable & Wireless IDC for YEN 12.3 billion (= US$ 110 million) Cable…