***If any of you have any helpful hints or interesting stories about doing business with Japanese that you wish to share, please send them to a_lewkowicz@triangletech.com ****

Exchange Rate as of January 10, 2000

$1 US = 116.84 Yen

+VODAFONE PLANS TO ACQUIRE 15%OF JAPAN TELECOM

Vodafone plans to to acquire 15% of Japan Telecom from Japan Railway for $2.5 billion. This action pits them against co-shareholders BT and AT&T who also each own 15%. Now BT has said that it is trying to buy AT&T's share, to put it back in control.

+NTT, SEIKO AND NIKKO CAPITAL TO INVEST IN VERTEX II

NTT, Seiko and Nikko Capital invested in Israeli VC fund Vertex II. Other investors in Vertex II include the National Science and Technology Board of Singapore (NTSB), Singapore Technology Group, Infocom Investments, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and other Singapore concerns

+DIGITAL BROADCAST MARKET TO REACH $9 BILLION BY 2005

Nomura Research Institute (NRI) says that Japan's digital broadcast market will exceed $9 billion by 2005. Digital broadcasting services, including terrestrial digital broadcasting, will reach 24 million households by then, of which 12.5 million will subscribe to satellite digital broadcasting. The satellite digital broadcasting market will reach $5 billion by 2005.

+59% OF JAPANESE YOUTH HAVE CELL PHONES

According to a Management and Coordination Agency (MCA) survey of "youth trends," 59% of Japanese high school juniors – 68% of girls and 50% of boys -- have their own mobile phone. Some reports suggest that teen spending on games and entertainment has dropped because many are using their allowances/earnings to pay feed their mobile phone habit instead. Asked what are the main benefits of having a mobile phone, 90% of students answered that it was easier to keep in touch with friends, 70% said they could talk freely with their girlfriend/boyfriend, and 66% said they could readily contact or be contacted by family members.

The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications will join with as many as 1 million consumers and 30 companies such as Sony, NEC and various Japanese ISPs. IPv6 increases address space to 32 bits from the current 12 bits used in IPv4, and enables digital home appliances to be assigned addresses and directly connected to the Internet.

According GartnerGroup Japan, Toshiba expanded its share of the global semiconductor market to $11.21 billion dollars in 2000, replacing NEC Corp. as the world's No. 2 chip seller. The size of the global market grew 31.3% on the year to $222.08 billion dollars, recording double-digit growth for a second straight year, the report showed. Intel in first place with $29.75 billion dollars in total sales.

Taken from www.asianet.com

1. Wireless Internet undergoes explosive growth NTT DoCoMo's i-mode wireless Internet service grew fivefold in 2000, from about 3 million subscribers at the end of 1999 to 15.4 million subscribers as of November 30. When competing services--the au Group's EZweb (4.6 million subscribers) and J-Phone's J-Sky (4.0 million subscribers)--are added to the equation, Japan's wireless Internet population at the end of November 2000 was 24 million.
2. Low-cost, high-speed Net access options proliferate in spring 2000, NTT's regional carriers began nationwide expansion of their ISDN Internet access service, which was launched on a trial basis in 1999. Their flat-rate, 64K-bps FLET'S ISDN service grew from just a few thousand users at the end of 1999 to more than 160,000 subscribers. The last few months of 2000 also saw incipient growth of broadband home Internet access. Though there were just 6,000 ADSL subscribers nationwide at the end of 2000, the market is poised for rapid expansion as government pressure has finally forced NTT to open its lines to rivals at a reasonable cost.
3. Convenience stores become e-commerce middlemen In what has been termed a "unique Japanese-style of e-commerce," convenience stores are merging Internet sales with their traditional business. Led by Seven-Eleven and Lawson, Japanese convenience stores have installed in-store multimedia kiosks and launched Internet shopping sites. Shoppers can select the goods they want online and arrange to pay for and even pick up the merchandise at a neighborhood store.
4. The Internet goes to court Several police actions and judicial decisions in 2000 involved the Internet, including: (1) a police raid of Yahoo Japan to gather evidence relating to online sales of pornographic materials; (2) the first Japanese court judgement involving a ".co.jp" domain name dispute; and (3) a court decision that held a software developer liable because his program was used for illegal purposes, even though he did not participate directly in the activity in question.
5. Applications and data find a home online The market for application service providers (ASPs) and data center services expanded dramatically in 2000, with large and small domestic firms as well as prominent foreign firms gearing up for business in Japan.
6. Online trading hits new heights Deregulation of brokerage commissions in late 1999 resulted in a proliferation of online trading sites and an intense price war to win customers. The number of online accounts in Japan grew tenfold in the first year following deregulation, surpassing 1.3 million in August 2000.
7. Several free ISPs and Internet phone services are launched tried in the mid-90s with poor results, the concept of "free access" finally began to take hold in Japan in 2000. Whether the "free access if you view our ads" business model will prove viable, however, remains to be seen.
8. Major electronics manufacturers begin direct online sales Japanese PC and electronics manufacturers were long reluctant to sell directly to consumers for fear of alienating the retailers who sell their goods (some of whom threatened to pull the manufacturers' products from their shelves). Unable to resist the e-commerce tsunami any longer, however, Sony, Toshiba and others finally embraced direct online sales in 2000.
9. Hackers hit Japan Web sites. In a wake-up call to Japanese business and government ministries regarding the need for security, 2000 saw a number of high-profile homepage defacements, server intrusions, and information leaks.
10. Japanese women come into their own online. The year 2000 saw the launch of several Web sites and online services targeting female users.

+DOCOMO AND HP JAPAN TO TEST 4G WIRELESS NETWORK APPLICATIONS

NTT DoCoMo and Hewlett-Packard plan to conduct joint R&D for developing core technologies for fourth-generation (4G) mobile communications applications. This collaboration will focus on two main areas. They are: (1) developing server distribution technique to enable smooth streaming of data over the Internet protocol (IP) networks that will form the basis of 4G mobile systems, and (2) developing technology to be utilized in mobile applications to use broadband wireless connections.

NTT DoCoMo plans to launch the world's first ever Java-based cell phone Internet service. Adopting Java will enable the use of a greater variety of Internet software over cell phones, allowing cell phone users to download software to play games against each other over the Net or to obtain updates of weather, stock prices and traffic conditions.

+ DR. TSUTOMU KOBAYASHI JOINS TRIANGLE TECHNOLOGIES

Triangle Technologies is pleased to announce that Dr. Tsutomu (Tom) Kobayashi has joined Triangle Technologies' Japan office as Vice President for Business Development. Dr. Kobayashi has unusual breadth of experience in various technology related ventures in Japan and the US. Most recently Dr. Kobayashi served as Vice President and Deputy General Manager of Sharp Corporation's R&D group. Prior to that point, among other positions, at different times he was in charge of Digital Equipment Corporation's and Apple Corporation's R&D in Japan. Dr. Kobayashi has a Ph.D. from Yale University in Physics. Dr. Kobayashi has extensive international business development experience, and was involved in many of Sharp's international, technology alliances.

+TRIANGLE TECHNOLOGIES MOVES OFFICES

Triangle Technologies has moved to a larger office located in the Kojimachi-Hirakawacho area of Tokyo. The move was needed due to Triangle Technologies growing staff in Japan. The new telphone number is + 81-3- 52158760 and the new fax number is +81-3- 52158765. The address of the new office is 1-4-12 Hirakawa-cho, Chiyoda-ku Tokyo 102-0093 JAPAN.