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Dan's
Desk - from Triangle's CEO
I
just came back from Japan and there are two things all the executives
and venture capitalists I deal with are talking about - 3G and Broadband.
I will write more about broadband next time (there is no hurry,
believe me), but a few words about 3G. First, dont expect too much
right away. There will be a gradual roll out in part of Tokyo starting
in May, and rumors are that DoCoMo will keep the prices high in
order to keep demand low, and expectations low. Due to the build
up and hype around 3G, they are concerned about network overload.
In addition, the data rate expected is 384 kbps. However, this is
the maximum, and estimates of effective bandwidth are anywhere from
onesixth to one third of this speed.
Finally,
a number of people are asking themselves, and each other, what applications
require such a high speed connection. Do you know what the iMode's
data rate is? 9.6 kbps. I dont hear many people in Japan complaining
about the speed with which they download or upload messages. As
the President of Japan's largest venture capital company told me,
you can build a wide, superhighway, but it is a waste if all you
have are lots of bicycles. Personally I am of the Kevin Costner
school of bandwidth - "if you build it, they will come." If you
build the superhighways, eventually someone will come along with
the fast cars. And vice versa. I believe that the next few years
in Japan will see the development of novel content, applications,
and services that do take advantage of the bandwidth and infrastructure.
Japan (and Korea) will lead the way. But it will take a lot of trial
and error to determine which content will take hold, and it will
be difficult to predict based on today's usage patterns. By the
way, estimates are that almost all of the iMode users are under
35, and about half are under 25(some of the adult 'users' actually
buy the iModes for their kids), and these half account for the large
majority of non-voice usage.Table of Contents :
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Table of Contents:
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Exchange
Rate as of December 14, 2000
$1 US = 112.39 Yen 1
NIS= 27.47 Yen
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Finanacial
News
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DOCOMO TO ACQUIRE 20% of AT&T WIRELESS
DoCoMo will take a 16% stake in
AT&T Wireless Corp. for about $10 billion. AT&T Wireless,
an AT&T Corp. division, will be spun off next summer, with
DoCoMo becoming its largest shareholder. AT&T Wireless is
the third-largest player in the U.S. mobile-phone market.
***ISRAEL-JAPAN NEWS***
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PRINTLIFE
RAISES $10 MILLION
Printlife,
a provider of innovative services that enable consumers to
display and share digital images in a bound, hardcover photo
book, today announced it has secured an additional $10 million
in funding lead by Scitex, Mitsubishi Corporation and JAFCO,
Israel Seed Partners, DOR Ventures and Apax Partners. Triangle
Technologies, a founding shareholder in Printlife, helped
establish Printlife's operations in Japan and served as investment
banker for Printlife in the current round of financing for
the Japanese investment.
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General
Technology News |
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MPT’S INTERNET USER STATS
The
Ministry of Posts & Telecomunications says that Japan had
14,540,000 dial-up Internet users as of the end of October,
an increase of 376,300 from a month earlier. Of these, the
number of people accessing the Web over cable was 463,000,
up from 216,000 at the end of March this year. There are currently
152 cable operators offering an ISP service, up from 84 at
the end of 1999.
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CRM
MARKET TO INCREASE 15.8%
According
to IDC Japan the Japanese CRM market was valued at $1.03 billion
in 1999, accounting for 12.8% of the domestic SI services
market last year. IDC also forecasts that the CRM services
business will grow 15-17% annually between 1999 and 2004,
reaching $2.15 billion annually.
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JAPAN
INTERNET USERS PREFER CATV
According to a survey by Gartner Group Japan Japanese users
would prefer to have CATV broadband services for their Internet
broadband service. According to the survey, 35.2 % of Japanese
users said they would like to have CATV broadband services.
In second place, at 23.5 %, came ADSL, followed by fiber optic-lines,
which were the preferred choice of 22.8 % of the survey's respondents.
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NTT
DOCOMO TO OFFER MPEG-4 TECHNOLOGY FOR PHS PHONES
NTT DoCoMo will launch a new service called "M-stage visual,"
to deliver moving-picture content in MPEG-4 format via wireless
transmission. Initially, the service will only be available
via a DoCoMo personal handyphone system (PHS) phone hooked
up to a dedicated device called "eggy."
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CONSUMERS
PICK SONY’S DESKTOP PC AS FAVORITE
According
to Nikkei Market Access Sony has become most popular PC maker
among consumers planning to buy desktop PCs during the year-end
holiday season. Although Sony has remained in first place
with notebook PCs since the winter of 1998, the company also
emerged as the most popular maker of desktop PCsSony took
the top spot, followed by Fujitsu and NEC.
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JAPAN’S
ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE MARKET INCREASES
Shipments
of antivirus software for corporate use in Japan are expected
to reach some $160 million in FY, a 26% increase over the
previous fiscal year, a survey of eight top venders by Nikkei
Business Publications Inc. indicates. Virus outbreaks in the
past two years have prompted most companies to step up security.
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CELL
PHONE USESRS TOP 20 MILLION USERS
Subscribers
accessing Internet services via their cellular phones topped
20 million, according to a survey released by mobile phone operators.
A total of 21,799,800 people held subscriptions to Net-access
services, up 10.8% from a month earlier, meaning that one in
three cell-phone users access the Internet via their handset.NTT
DoCoMo, the market leader, garnered 80% of the new cell-phone
subscribers. |
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GOVERNMET
TO ALLOW SALE OF DSL INTERNT MODEMS
MPT plans to lift the ban on the sale of DSL (digital
subscriber line) modems which provide fast access to the Internet
over regular telephone lines, ministry sources said Saturday.
The measure is part of the ministry's goal of wiring up 30
million households to high-speed Internet access by 2005.
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CONSORTIUM
FOR BROADBAND BY FIBER OPTIC NETWORKS IS ESTABLISHED
Several Japanese firms have joined together to form a
consortium that will propose industry standards for broadband
services using fiber-optic networks. The original members
of the consortium include Matsushita, Sharp, NTT, Dai Nippon
Printing and NEC. The new consortium will consider such issues
as copyright protection and security, service quality guarantees,
as well as company-to-company interface standards.
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NEW
TECHNOLOGIES |
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NTT
TRANSMITS 80 GBPS SIGNAL ON ONE WAVELEGTH
NTT is
experimenting with long-distance, large-capacity optical data
transmissions using soliton waves, a type of wave that can
propagate over long distances without any distortion. Recently,
NTT succeeded to transmit a signal of 80 gigabits per second
(80 Gbps) on one wavelength of light for a total distance
of 10,000km.
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NTT
DEVELOPS WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY FOR "WEARABLE COMPUTERS"
NTT
developed wireless technology for "wearable computers" - advanced
devices that look like watches, rings and other items of clothing
. The circuit uses a 1-volt drive, less than half the voltage
needed for conventional circuits. The technology is intended
for wireless terminals communicating at a distance of about
10-100 meters. The company says it is compatible with Bluetooth
short-distance wireless technology, which enables wireless exchanges
between cellular phones and mobile personal computers |
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