Archives: October 2006

Softbank CEO: Taunts One Day, Haunted The Next

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 30, Categories: Telecom

A week ago, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son practically taunted his bigger rivals in the wireless telecom biz. Now, he's eating crow. On Oct. 30, Son acknowledged that he was a...

PS3 Speculators

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 27, Categories: Games

If you're looking to buy one of Sony's brand-new PlayStation 3 video game consoles and don't have the time to camp out at Wal Mart a week before the...

TopCoder chooses China over India

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on October 26, Categories: Services/Outsourcing

Rob Hughes is in a good position to judge the merits of China’s software engineers compared to their counterparts in India. He’s president of TopCoder Inc., the Connecticut company that...

OhmyNews Isn't Sailing Smoothly Overseas

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on October 24, Categories: Internet

Seoul-based Web site OhmyNews is certainly a pioneering example of citizen journalism. It demonstrated the power of the participation of ordinary people in the news-gathering process with its coverage of...

Are pay TV pirates on the rampage in Asia?

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on October 24, Categories: Technology

Free cable. For some, those are magic words. But how many people really try to get cable TV for free? In the U.S., most Americans recognize free cable for what...

Masayoshi Son vs. the Wireless Establishment...Round 1

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 23, Categories: Telecom

Masayoshi Son, Softbank's feisty CEO, has declared war on the wireless Establishment. On Oct. 23, Son said Softbank, the smallest of Japan's three wireless providers, would undercut the rates of...

YouTube Hits Delete Button on Pirated Japan Clips

Posted by: Brian Bremner on October 20, Categories: Internet

Google’s exposure to copyright violations followings its recent $1.65 billion acquisition of the hugely popular video-sharing site YouTube has been a big concern. To understand why, consider that YouTube has...

Samsung Officials Accused of Price Fixing

Posted by: Moon Ihlwan on October 19, Categories: Chips

In connection with a major antitrust investigation in U.S. history, executives at Korea’s Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor, were indicted for conspiring to fix prices for computer memory chips, a...

Chinese companies not welcome in India?

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on October 18, Categories: Telecom

It’s one thing for India to roll out the welcome map for Western multinationals looking to take advantage of Indian talent. But what happens when the companies that want to...

Déjà vu at Sony

Posted by: Ian Rowley on October 17, Categories: Consumer Electronics

Another day, another Sony laptop battery recall. Today, Sony said it would be recalling up to 60,000 battery packs used in its Vaio laptops in Japan and 30,000 in China...

Introducing the Lexus phone

Posted by: Ian Rowley on October 16, Categories: Telecom

Will a branded mobile phone help Lexus ring up more sales in Japan? According to reports in the Japanese media, Toyota is working with telephone company KDDI to produce a...

Where's the hard disk?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on October 11, Categories: Computers

Fujitsu is tip-toeing into new territory. On Oct. 11, Japan's second-largest computer maker announced that it would make a laptop that relies only on NAND flash memory, the chip-of-choice when...

India struggles to copy China's SEZs

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on October 09, Categories: Technology

For anybody wondering why China is already an economic power and Asia’s other giant, India, is struggling to catch up, consider four letters: SEZs. They stand for “Special Economic Zones,”...

Why can’t Chinese build global brands?

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on October 04, Categories: Telecom

The Japanese did it. The Koreans did it. Even the Indians are managing to do it now. So why can’t companies from Greater China have more success building global brands?...

Nintendo ups its profit forecasts

Posted by: Ian Rowley on October 03, Categories: Games

Nintendo's new Wii console won't go on sale until November, but that's not stopped the company upping its profit and sales forecasts. Today, Nintendo said it's raising its net earnings...