January 2000 Issue

On the cover: Yoshitaka Kitao of Softbank and E*trade Trading covers: This month we offer a buy and sell option. Which did you get?

January 2000
No. 3

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January 2000 Issue

Features
	Betting the House? Mutual funds go online in Japan (Part 1) New risks and new returns for household investors and financial houses

	Soho-Seeding the Field The Soho Center Nurtures a New Crop of Entrepreneurs

	Interview Finance in the Third Millennium, according to ING Barings' Rike Wootten

	Blowing Out the Walls ...with a Big Bang ETrade Japan was established early last year as a JV between Softbank and U.S. online securities trade giant ETrade. Since then, a growing number of competitors have entered the fray, and the chances that any one player will dominate appear slim.

News & Info
	Battle for the High-Speed Access Market The telecoms' battle over providing high-speed Internet access has heated up, with the main front now shifting to the local telecommunications market.

	Bringing Japanese Women's Sites up to Speed... "Many women have a balancing act to perform-kids, work. The Net is the single technology that talks about shaking up the business environment for them," says Janet G.H. Ang, director, sales operations, Asia Pacific IBM. "The Internet is actually helping to level the playing field in many aspects for women." Launched on September 2, 1999, womenjapan.com is a coming-of-age site for the Japanese Internet.

	AIBO Wags the Dog You probably think of robots as machines that do some kind of useful work. AIBO the dog, however, does nothing of the kind. It sits, walks, wags, and plays-it even learns and grows (not physically, of course). Certainly not very useful, but this little guy's cute as a mechanical mutt can be.

	Sakura, Fujitsu Move Virtual Banking Ahead The country is holding its breath for the birth of Japan's first virtual bank, scheduled to take place in 2000.

	Goldman Sachs: Impressing Impress Goldman Sachs made its first equity investment in a Japanese company in October 1999, selecting impress, a leading publisher of technology - and entertainment - related print and online magazines in Japan, as the recipient of some JPY 1.1 billion.

	Mobile Carriers Go Java As of November 1999, NTT DoCoMo had won more than 2 million subscribers for its i-mode telephone system-the world's first Internet services package offered via cellular phone. Attracted by this Net-savvy and affluent subscriber base, content providers have been rushing into bed with NTT, and by November 10, some 250 official and over 2,470 unofficial websites were i-mode enabled.

	Bullish on Japan.com When one writes on foreign companies in Japan, it is easy to invoke that popular metaphor of "Black Sheep" out on the horizon, thwarting long-standing trade barriers, real or imagined. When one writes on the American securities and brokerage firm Merrill Lynch, with asset totalling more than $1.5 trillion, one might as well skip the "Black Ship" idea and consider it an armada.

	Mothers: Caring for Internet Infants in Japan The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) launched a new stock market for venture companies called Mothers (Market of the High-growth and Emerging Stocks), in November 1999.

Columns
	VALLEY VIEW Finding the right VC

	INSIDE EYE American road kill on Japanese information superhighway (Part 2)

	Joi's Diary Swapping tips and arranging bits

	VENTURE WATCH Don't miss Japan's venture boom

	Logon Japan's telecom infrastructure good? Opportunities abound

Research
	Statistics (PDF-formatted file, Acrobat 4.0 or later required) Internet malls.

Shorts
	Japan Studies -- Entrepreneurial Encounters The decline in the rate of entrepreneurial startups in Japan has led to much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the media on how Japan is falling behind in the entrepreneurial race, especially versus the U.S. Opinions on the perceived causes of this are many-deficiencies in the educational system, societal constraints, lack of entrepreneurial spirit among Japanese, unfavorable banking practices, overly restrictive government regulations, a lack of funding, and so on.