fasol.blog

The candidates for the next President of the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) of Japan presented their views and answered questions at the FCCJ in Tokyo to the foreign press. An LDP party electoral college (387 Diet members + 141 regional representatives, in total 528 votes) will vote to select the president on September 22, 2008, who is likely to become the next Prime Minister after Yasuo Fukuda's resignation. The candidates are:

• Nobuteru Ishihara (50), son of Governor Ishihara of Tokyo. Minister for Administrative and Regulatory Reform


• Yuriko Koike (56), Journalist, Minister of Defence under Prime-Minister
  Abe


• Taro Aso (67), Minister of Foreign Affairs und Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Junichiro Koizumi. Taro Aso is Roman Catholic. Studied at Stanford University and at the London School of Economics.


• Shigeru Ishiba (51), Minister of Defence under Prime Minister Fukuda


• Kaoru Yosano (70), currently State Minister for Economic and Fiscal Policy

Our comment: Media generally predict that Taro Aso is likely to win the race for Presidency of the LDP and thus become next Prime Minister of Japan. Taro Aso comes from a leading family, and has wide experience.
Having attended the event at the Correspondents Club, in my opinion Mme Koike gave the clearest presentation - having worked as TV journalist clearly helps, but its also the content of her political program which is clear and meaningful and easy to understand. Mme Koike's program included the plan to "destroy Kasumigaseki", meaning that she plans to take political power from the Ministries to the Government and strengthen political leadership...

There is a generation gap between Aso (67) and Yosano (70) - and - Ishihara (50), Koike (56) and Ishiba (51). The presentations also clearly manifested this generation gap.
In my opinion Japan would benefit from diversity in leadership. Japan already has a number of outstanding women leaders, and would benefit to have some more women in politics as well, including top positions. So if I could vote - which I can't - I would myself vote for Ms Koike, and I said so in a TV interview by Asahi-TV.

Labels: candidates, fccj, ldp, prime minister

Tetsuzo Matsumoto (Senior Executive Vice-President and Board Member of SOFTBANK MOBILE Corporation),
Gerhard Fasol (CEO, Eurotechnology Japan KK)
and
Dennis Normile (Japan Correspondent of SCIENCE Magazine, and FCCJ)
discuss about the future of Japan's mobile phone market.

"Will the iPhone trigger a turning point in Japan's mobile phone industry?"
(Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, Tokyo Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 12:00-14:00)
(Photo: Copyright Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, used with permission)

Labels: 3G, Apple, cellphone, iPhone, iPhone 3G, mobile phone, Softbank

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...

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

Labels: st. patrick, st. patrick's day, tokyo, tokyo tower

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".

Labels: 3G, 3GPP, felica, mobile payment, suica, UMTS

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.

Labels: carl-henric svanberg, ericsson

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.

Labels: finland, japan, KDDI, nokia, teliasonera, Tero Ojanpera, ubiquitous

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 (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...

Labels: boltzmann, ludwig boltzmann

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



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