President's Message / 2007, September

Dear Friends of ICA:

Many thanks to all who attended our IT networking party on July 27. Including ACCJ Information, Technology & Communications Committee members, around 80 people attended, and the feedback on the food, open bar, and venue was excellent. You can see pictures of the party and several of our past events here. Many thanks to Chica Sato, ICA VP of Event Management, for taking and posting all of these photos! Unfortunately the restaurant, Conco di Oro, closed its doors just a week after our party. Our September special event will be at the Australian embassy, but events later this year will probably revert to the always charming, reliable, and historic Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Yurakucho.

The Economist on Employment in Japan

The Economist newspaper recently contained a couple of articles relevant to employment in Japan. The first, entitled “Gaijin at the Gates” claimed that the Japanese Government and industry are seeking to boost direct foreign investment “not for the cash, but for the people and ideas that come with it.” Japan “hopes that foreigners can reform companies, introduce competition, and shake up old industry structures in ways that domestic firms cannot.” The second article covered Asia’s Skills Shortage and stated that, “In a recent survey, 600 chief executives of multinational companies ranked the shortage of qualified staff in China and South-East Asia as their biggest concern. In Japan, it was their second-biggest headache (after cultural differences).” With the economy on the upturn, the next few years should be fertile for job hunting, with plenty of opportunities.

SoftBank / Windows Mobile

SoftBank Mobile’s aggressive pricing offers to Japanese customers has resulted in a net gain of 532,000 mobile phone subscribers in the three-month period to June 30, outperforming KDDI’s 521,100 and DoCoMo’s 224,600, according to figures compiled by Japan’s Telecommunications Carriers Association. Poor DoCoMo! They can’t compete with SoftBank’s pricing at the low-end, and they have a hard time matching KDDI’s superior services at the high end.

With all the coverage that the iPhone is getting in Japan, you would think that it was about to launch. The reality is that Japanese customers will need to wait up to 18 more months for it. While iPhone gets hyped, it is Microsoft that is quickly becoming a player in the mobile space in Japan with the launch of Windows-Mobile-enabled devices for the SoftBank, DoCoMo, EMobile and WILLCOM networks. SoftBank is planning to launch two new Windows Mobile devices (HTC, Toshiba) in September, and KDDI has indicated that they too will launch a Windows Mobile device by the end of the year.

Sincerely,

Darren McKellin
President - ICA