Japan Inc. articles from May 2004

Japan Inc. archives from May 2004

Consensus-seeking, conflict-avoiding, corporate Japan is getting a jolt this year in the form of a mini-rebellion. Three high-profile cases involving researchers seeking remuneration from the companies they worked for were settled in favor of the plaintiffs--to the tune of billions of yen.(Editor)
May 1, 2004... JAPAN'S CORPORATE BARONS are suddenly facing the very real possibility that individual accomplishment may be prized over teamwork, and that those individuals who display superior intelligence, talent and capability may be more important (and...

Sony's seer.(Buzz)
May 1, 2004... SONY had a tough time in the media last year. The so-called "Sony Shock" gave investors a scare, and although the shares have recovered entirely from their torment, it's still hard to shake the feeling that something else could go wrong. But...

Refueling Toyota.(Buzz)
May 1, 2004... ANOTHER fellow who impressed us recently was Fujio Cho, the boss of Toyota. Unlike Sony, Toyota has not suffered shocks recently and is in alarmingly good health, making Detroit's "Big Three" carmakers look like rank amateurs. Toyota has grown...

The Koreans are coming!(Buzz)
May 1, 2004... We popped into Tokyo International Anime Fair 04 at the end of March. While Japan is notorious for its penchant for branding everything "international" without actually being that way, this year's Anime Fair was a notable exception. The...

From little Acoms.(Buzz)
May 1, 2004... EARLIER this year we chatted with the president of Acom, the consumer loan company that continues its inexorable march into the lives of everyday Japanese. The company's old facade as little more than a jumped-up loan sharking operation had...

ZMP nuvo robots.(G-Spot)
May 1, 2004... ZMP has come up with a bipedal robot called "nuvo." Standing at 39cm and weighing 2.5kg, the nuvo guy is ready to go to new institutional or industrial homes right now for a cool [yen]3 million, but ZMP plans to make it available to the great...

Matsushita VDR-M70K.(G-Spot)
May 1, 2004... Matsushita's new VDR-M70K is a DVD digicam--it records straight to a DVD disc rather than tape--and is selling for less than old DV8 cameras. This digital camcorder with a 1,020,000-pixel CCD can take movies at a resolution of 400,000 pixels...

Epson R-D1.(G-Spot)
May 1, 2004... The R-D1, the first digital rangefinder camera, focuses by using triangulation. It fuses high tech and yesteryear, with manual focus and shutter speed and a retro body casing, combined with a six-million pixel APS-C size CCD, a "through the...

Toshiba MEG201.(G-Spot)
May 1, 2004... The gigabeat G21 is a LAN-compatible HDD portable audio player housing a 20GB hard disk and with a IEEE 802.11b wireless capability. It can be picked up as a "set" package deal with Buffalo's WLI-USB-KB11 "AirStation" wireless LAN adapter for a...

E-Lets PC-M6100E.(G-Spot)
May 1, 2004... The E-Lets with the "Be Silent M6100" does exactly what it says. It's a fan-less PC that doesn't sound like a helicopter when you boot it up. You can now play games without waking anyone. The "bare bones" PC-M6100E kit is powered by an Eden...

Olympus Camedia X-3.(G-Spot)
May 1, 2004... Digital cameras are growing horribly boring looking. Many are silver, once a good start, but now far too common. Olympus' 6.1 megapixel Camedia X-3 is no exception, but it's a neat little machine, bettering the X-2 with a higher CCD pixel...

Canon boosts production in China: Canon shows off to investors it can become GE, or even better.(TechTalk)
May 1, 2004... Canon Inc., which in 2003 marked the fourth straight year of extending a record profit, wants to prove to investors that it can become another General Electric. Just as Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, focused on businesses in which GE could...

Matsushita pushes its DVD recorders: Panasonic to roll out 9 kinds of DVD recorders in 3 months.(TechTalk)
May 1, 2004... If your VCR breaks now, would you buy another VCR--or would you fork it over for a DVD recorder? And how likely are you to buy cool digital equipment by such stalwarts as Sony, Panasonic and Pioneer at your nearest Walmart or other shop? VCRs...

A hollow Hokkaido: a historic village is a microcosm for northern woes.
May 1, 2004... NEMURO, Hokkaido: Windy and weatherbeaten, this slender slice of northeastern Japan surrenders to snow and ice much of the year. But in mind-set, the town of 33,000 has been frozen for decades. ********** STREETS BRISTLE WITH slogans...

The storytellers: David McCaughan and McCann Pulse[TM] tell it like it is.(UpFront)
May 1, 2004... ONCE upon a time, in a far away land, a children's storyteller found himself in a strange building where people spent their days in earnest discussion and debate about how other people lived their lives. They would pace about the large rooms,...

From Tokyo to the world: "go west, young man," say two Tokyo-based media brothers.(Voice)
May 1, 2004... "RIGHT now, it's a holocaust for English-language publications in Japan," says David McNeill, reporter for the Independent of London and a professor at Tokyo's Sophia University. Last fall, McNeill wrote a devastating assessment of the...

Terrorism, the US correction and Japan: our analyst tackles the terrorism tax and tips on Japan.(InvestorInsight)
May 1, 2004... SINCE September 11, 2001, terrorism has become a fact of life. The ongoing and increasing risk of major acts of terrorism represents not only an immeasurable risk to the financial markets, but also acts as a tax on economies in the form of...

Suntory's world-class malts: Kansai's very own whisky rebellion.(Kansai)
May 1, 2004... THE salaryman enjoying a glass of whisky after work has long been a staple image in postwar Japan. Cigarette in one hand, a tumbler of scotch in the other, Japanese men played out this role in the 1,500 Torys bars Suntory established in the 50s...

Beneath the beeches.(Look)
May 1, 2004... SPRING COMES LATE to the mountains of Japan. While most of the nation revels in the warmth and light of Golden Week--a string of holidays running from the end of April into the first week of May--snow still lies thick on the ground in the...

Bolster your bottom line through recruiting: an improving economy means intense recruitment pressure.(Advertisement)
May 1, 2004... ALTHOUGH the Japanese economy is in an upturn and both foreign and Japanese firms have started hiring again, the old rule that employment follows the stock market by six to nine months is still very much alive. ********** THE...

Competing in an ever-changing world.
May 1, 2004... The downturn in the employment market over the last 18 months has given companies the chance to focus internally on structure and processes, making their organizations more efficient in an effort to increase revenue and profits. With the...

Bizzare bazaar: USS and the used-car craze.(Feature)
May 1, 2004... JAPAN'S leading carmakers are expanding their reach into the US. But even in the poorest corners of the planet the Japanese are gaining a large and loyal following, thanks to a brisk trade in secondhand cars. ********** ONCE UPON A...

Inventor vengeance: Japan's top inventors go to court.(Feature)(Cover Story)
May 1, 2004... NESTLED among the glitz of the world's wealthiest investment banks and most expensive hotels, the polished granite exterior of Doctor Yoshiro NakaMats's Innovation Institute looks like a thousand other glittering Tokyo facades. Gleaming plaques...

No more kotatsu.(Blowfish)
May 1, 2004... KEEPING SMALL GOVERNMENTS SMALL. When local governments shed civil servants, do they not deserve praise? Nikkei Business noted that these were reduced from 3.27 million in 1997 to 3.14 million in 2002, an average decline of 3.8 percent over...