Interesting People mailing list archives
more on Setting Fire To Japan's Cell-Phone Market
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 04:28:18 -0500
Begin forwarded message: From: Ted Dolotta <Ted () Dolotta ORG> Date: October 30, 2004 6:27:08 PM EDT To: dave () farber net Subject: RE: [IP] Setting Fire To Japan's Cell-Phone Market Reply-To: Ted () Dolotta ORG Having worked very, very closely with Masa Son for over ten years, I can assure you that this is classic Son: he has pulled off a number of such stunts to force change in Japan: he decided to essentially *give* stock to all his employees in the early 1990's, because stock options were illegal in Japan ("Insider trading," said the government ...); they no longer are. And the way he forced the government to give him Japanese citizenship (he was born in Japan, but as a Korean national) *without* him having to change his last name to an "acceptable"Japanese surname -- which was the rule in Japan -- is an absolute classic,
but perhaps too long a story for IP. Son is a real piece of work. That said, the Business Week article referenced below, and even more so, the companion interview (Online Extra: Why Son is "Banging the Table") have been, IMHO, "punched" up a bit: the tone of the two pieces is a bit over the top, and although his English is very good (he has a B.S. from UC Berkeley), when I worked with him, Son's vocabulary did not include words such as "ubiquitous" and "seamlessly" ... Ted Dolotta P.S. And in the interim, SOFTBANK has 4.5 million customers who get 20+Mb/3Mb ADSL, and all the VoIP they can eat, for some $35/month. NTT & KDDI have been forced to drop their rates, and the users benefit. And I'm eating my heart out here in the old US of A ...
Begin forwarded message: From: IKEDA Nobuo <ikedanob () db3 so-net ne jp> Date: October 29, 2004 9:20:58 PM EDT To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net> Cc: ikedanob () db3 so-net ne jp Subject: Setting Fire To Japan's Cell-Phone Market Three years ago, Masayoshi Son walked into Japan's communications ministry and threatened to set himself on fire. A stunt of course, but he was deadly serious about one thing: He felt regulators were draggingtheir feet in forcing Japan's Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. (NTT ), the former monopoly operator, to fulfill its legal obligation to connect residential customers to the broadband lines of Yahoo! BB, a mainstay ofSon's Softbank Corp. Now, Son hopes to transform Japan's cellular market. His plan is to offer his broadband customers -- most of whom also subscribe to supercheap Internet telephony -- package deals that include mobile service, the Internet, and voice calling. That, he says, would help cut rates for Japanese mobile users, who pay an average of $65 monthly. "I can guarantee that cell-phone prices will be lower if we come in," says Son, Softbank's president. The reshuffling has Son hot under the collar again, but this time he's not threatening self-immolation. Instead, on Oct. 13 he filed a lawsuit against the ministry, calling for the spectrum reallocation to be stopped. "I'm getting smarter," Son says. "It's still business suicide,but it's better than physically killing myself." Specifically, Son wantsthe ministry to divide the spectrum into three chunks, giving equal pieces to a newcomer -- which Son hopes will be Softbank -- and to KDDI and DoCoMo. His argument: Both carriers are already sitting on unused spectrum, so why shouldn't they face more competition? http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_44/b3906073.htm While you have too many lawsuits between the FCC and operators, we havetoo few suits in Japan. This is the first case that any company sues thegovernment over spectrum allocation in Japan's history. -- Ikeda, Nobuo GLOCOM, Japan ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as Ted () Dolotta ORG To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ipArchives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
Current thread:
- more on Setting Fire To Japan's Cell-Phone Market David Farber (Oct 31)