BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : JANUARY 17, 2000 ISSUE
INTERNATIONAL -- ASIAN COVER STORY Staking a Claim in Japan's Net Gold Rush (int'l edition) Takateru Imaizumi, a 27-year-old computer programmer, still can't believe his luck. Last February, he wrote a search-engine program that would help people with smart cell phones surf the Net and find information that was specially coded to look good on tiny handset screen. He designed the program to work with NTT DoCoMo's new i-mode Internet service. And he posted the program online just a few days after the i-mode launch. The timing was perfect. Content providers--from weather and city guide services to game sites--were already racing to prepare their Web pages for a stampede of mobile Internet fans. And all the sites wanted to register with Imaizumi's ''i-search'' service. Today, Imaizumi is besieged with offers from investors wanting a piece of the action. ''I thought it was a fad that wouldn't last,'' he says. ''Now I know this is beginning of Japan's Internet revolution.'' BETTING THE STORE. Gold rush might be a better term. And while nobody can predict how rich or deep the veins of Japan's wireless Net will run, dozens of agile startups are scrambling to stake their claims. Some Web sites are tailoring existing services for i-mode. Others, aimed exclusively at Web phones, only exist because of i-mode. But all are inspired by explosion of new i-mode subscribers. A group called the Mobile Computing Promotion Consortium predicts that 21 million Japanese will be surfing the Web on smart phones by 2001, up from 3 million today. By 2003, mobile cyberbusinesses like i-search could be generating $60 billion in yearly revenues. Hiroshi Nishino, a business consultant who advises i-mode startups, calls these phones ''wearable computers that give you Internet access 24 hours a day.'' Once speech-recognition technology matures to the point where keyboards are no longer required to create long text files, ''many users could forgo [desktop] computers altogether,'' he says. Toru Arakawa, president of Access Co., is betting the store on the mobile Internet. An erstwhile developer of software for consumer gadgets, Access now holds an 80% share of the Japanese market for Internet browsers aimed at cell phones and other non-PC gadgets. With sales of about $17 million a year, the company is planning to list its shares next July on ''Mothers,'' a Japanese stock market for startups. After that, Arakawa wants to ''catch the wave'' in Europe and Asia, he says. PIONEERS. Imaizumi shares that dream. In September, he quit his job at a subsidiary of Fujitsu Ltd. and launched i-search with his 25-year-old brother, Takehiko. Now, the two are sorting through joint-venture and investment proposals from Fujitsu, NEC Corp., and a host of venture capitalists fresh off their jets from Silicon Valley. The brothers know they will soon face competition from the likes of Yahoo! Inc. and Infoseek Corp. But they also know that being first counted for plenty in the wired world, when mind-boggling fortunes were built by early cybersettlers in the Valley. Now, as the Net goes wireless, some of the prime real estate may turn up in Japan. By Irene M. Kunii in Tokyo _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS Amazing DoCoMo (int'l edition) ASIAN COVER IMAGE: DoCoMo TABLE: Why Japanese Are Mad for i-mode PHOTO: DoCoMo's i-mode Phone CHART: DoCoMo's Unearthly Flight...And a Share Price to Match Staking a Claim in Japan's Net Gold Rush (int'l edition) ONLINE ORIGINAL: What's It All About: An i-mode Primer (int'l edition) ONLINE ORIGINAL: DoCoMo's Keichi Tachikawa on i-mode and Beyond (int'l edition) ONLINE ORIGINAL: ``It Could Obviate the Need for Cable'' (int'l edition) INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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