Gen Kanai

Baidu: Silence is Not Golden, It's Poison

If I remember correctly, the day that Robin was scheduled to speak at ad:tech Shanghai was right around the time the controversy over Baidu's taking ads from non-legal pharmaceuticals hit the news (when they knew those advertisers were selling illegal drugs.) Checking the dates, Ad:Tech Shanghai was 11/25-26 and the controversy blew up a few days earlier. So Robin should have made the event, imo.

globalvoicesonline.org.../

Can Tokyo Regain Its Luster as a World Financial Center?

Great post. It is obvious that Japan is not prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to regain it's position as a WFC. The government may 'say' that they want that, but the reality is clearly less convincing, and the market responds by listing elsewhere, by moving offices outside of Japan, etc. Without any radical change in policy, Japan will continue to be marginalized and fall further into the shadow of China, which, when you consider the history of Asia from more than just the 20th century, makes more sense.

More Japanese Polarization: Only the Truly Global Will Prosper

Darrel, I appreciate your sentiment but who would you point to in Japan as a "truly global" enterprise.

I've worked for the "leading" Japanese automaker and the leading Japanese consumer electronics brand and neither enterprise was "truly global" by my own estimation (i.e. board of directors and senior executives 90%+ Japanese.)

Japanese Government to Embrace Linux

Sorry for the double comment but the Chosaq weblog puts it better than I did.

chosaq ｻ Japanese government eyeing Linux? Quick deconstruction of a non-story.

Japanese Government to Embrace Linux

I am extremely skeptical about this news because the Japanese government has said essentially the same thing about once a year for a number of years without any material change. It's not to say that I don't want this to happen, I do, but getting people to change their habits is one of the most challenging things to do, and having users (just imagine your average Japanese government employee) learning a new operating system (even something as friendly as Ubuntu) or new software (Open Office for instance) is a significant hurdle.

The IPA has funded a number of interesting tests in various locales but there has to be a serious desire to change in order to get people to adopt new software, especially at the client level.

I recommend that people keep healthy skepticism on this topic. We've heard the same empty promises before many times and frankly, I'll believe it when I see it with my own two eyes.

KKR: Japan 'Fertile Territory' for PE

The FT article is behind a subscriber-firewall.

A few other similar ones are here:

Bloomberg
www.bloomberg.com/apps...;sid=aJMcm4NHjnNw&...

AFP (via turkishpress; unflattering photo...)
www.turkishpress.com/n...

Nikko Cordial Bouncing Around; I'm Not Selling

A number of people I know are outraged by the fact that a delisting is even being considered here. There would be so much investor value crushed by a delisting, when in fact only certain people were responsible for the accounting misreporting.

The way the NYSE and the TSE handle delistings are pretty different and the TSE seems to be less investor-friendly.

Can the BlackBerry Crack Japan?

There is absolutely no way the Blackberry will gain any traction in Japan. Correct me if I am wrong but the model that NTT is selling doesn't support Japanese.

If you really wanted a Blackberry, you could have bought a Hong Kong Blackberry that works in Japan currently (DoCoMo and Vodafone/Softbank networks).

This is much ado about nothing.

IPO of Sony's Internet Arm Planned (SNE, NMR)

This is going to be yet another fiasco for Sony.

An IPO of an ISP in 2005? The market was interested in this sort of IPO about 8 years ago. An ISP that doesn't own it's own network? How profitable has this business been? Take a close look at the P/L before you go near that stock.

What Happened to Mitsubishi Motors? (GS, DCX)

I just don't see any future for Mitsubishi Motors except for a govt. restructing, which I think would be a mistake. Japan has more than enough competition in the car industry, Mitsubishi Motors has a horrendous record of safety problems and recalls, and Mitsubishi as a keiretsu is more than busy with everything else that it's doing.

We've seen the Japanese govt. step in to save Daiei and I predict the same would happen here, even if I think that in the long term it isn't the right use of Japanese taxpayers' funds.

Merrill Lynch's Jesper Koll, "Japan is Back, For Real This Time"

Scott146, two good ideas but let me play devil's advocate.

Japan can't afford to build a big mililary because, 1) they don't have the people to do so, and 2) it is a politically sensitive move to do so. If you follow Japan's news, you know that Koizumi is trying to get changes made to the constitution to allow for a real military. Even if that is voted in, it will take generations for Japanese citizens to be comfortable with the idea of a military like Japan had previously. For over 50 years, Japan has been without a real military. Also, note the fact that Japan's Asian neighbors are not at all comfortable with Japan's moves towards a real military. That's another perspective that cannot be ignored. Japan's profile in Asia and it's history means that they cannot do anything without impacting others in this region. Finally, more Japanese in a professional military means less people to work. Japan may not be able to afford that.

As to your comments re: Japan's space program, I think that the govt. has been working to raise the profile of Japan's space program including the launches of satellites in the past few years, and then the recently reported high-altitude tests of prototypes in the Australian Outback. I agree it's an important growth area.

Merrill Lynch's Jesper Koll, "Japan is Back, For Real This Time"

One other comment- when I use a MovableType bookmarklet to generate a link from your blog to post a link to my blog, I get some errors with the character between "Blog" and "Merrill". Not sure if you can change that character to a hyphen or emdash but...

Merrill Lynch's Jesper Koll, "Japan is Back, For Real This Time"

Good summary. Koll is always quotable.

I'm one of the most skeptical and bearish on Japan but I do think there has been a significant change.

That said, I know for a fact that Japanese companies are still tied to informal keiretsu and do not always go for the cheapest vendor. Relationships are so powerful in Japan they often trump economics.