August 2001 Issue

August 2001

On the cover: Give the people what they want.
by Andrew Pothecary

August 2001
No. 22

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August 2001 Issue

Features
	The Independent Atsuto Sawakami thinks the Japanese are finally ready to put their money into something other than savings. The growth of his self-named stock fund suggests he's on to something.

	The Investors For professional investors focused on Japan, it's been a great summer to sell in May and go away. But what are their strategies for later?

	The Marketeer As president of the Osaka Stock Exchange -- the birthplace of futures -- Goro Tatsumi is determined to push through reforms. But there are 124 years of habit to overcome. And Tokyo bureaucrats.

	The Gardener For VC/professor Takatoshi Matsumoto, the best companies to invest in are student startups. That makes him a bit of an iconoclast in Japan's VC community -- if there is such a thing.

	Investing in Japan The subject is too big to tackle from one angle, so we go inside the minds of those approaching it from very different angles ...

Filter
	"Beteran" Assistance A group of business veterans from Japan's corporate giants is doing what it can to help the nation's young entrepreneurs.

	Shall We Dance? How New York investment bank Lehman Brothers got its feet bruised dancing with Japanese Net giant Softbank.

	The Handset Wars We got to wondering which Net cellphone handsets were selling best. The results didn't surprise us.

	Do It All Through Power Lines A power line communications experiment gets underway in Shikoku -- the key word being "experiment."

People
	Gang Xu He's a computer science professor at Ritsumeikan University, but he's also something else: an entrepreneur.

	Peter Tasker This financial guru -- and noir novelist -- now runs a Japan-focused investment fund.

Research
	Statistics (PDF-formatted file, Acrobat 4.0 or later required) The Net grabs old media by the throat; online dating dangers; spam.

Investor
	Special Report: TLOs There's a lot of tech innovation in academic research labs. For investors willing to partner with professors, technology licensing offices hold the key.

	Consumer Banking Gets A Facelift In Japan's staid world of consumer banking, it's foreign players and new Japanese e-banks that are leading in innovation.

	Maps For The Masses APAS serves up keitai-sized maps and hopes to export its system to the US. But making money outside Japan will be tough.

	Radar Screen This month: Bio-Xcelerator, Solid Information Technology, Cognitive Research Labs, i-drive.com.

In Parting
	Art Department Japanese noise artist Merzbow uses the computer to bypass the big in "big music."

Blowfish
	Blowfish A shop called Ranking Ranking ranks -- what else -- the best-selling items in the store. It's a marketer's dream come true.