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Strategies & Market Trends : JAPAN-Nikkei-Time to go back up? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FACTUAL who wrote (1653)	12/14/1998 7:45:00 PM
From: Step1	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3902

OT I wanted to add this about my observations on the internet here. While there are obviously some big positives which should work in favor of the penetrations of internet services here (Japanese infatuation with new technology is one) , I think that a few other hurdles still stand in the way. Dont get me wrong , I am not bearish on the net, just have to be realistic as to how much it can realistically do in a certain time frame. Predictions of doom aside, it takes time to build this kind of infrastructure. Just for discussion's sake, here are some of the hurdles I was referring to above: 1- aging population therefore likely to need more training to get used to the net (getting rid of Windows would be a big step already) 2- excessive charges for phone services at the moment 3- low penetration of credit cards 4- 80% of the information (to a large extent as well, commercial sites) are in English Obviously, except for number one, all the other points mentioned can be reversed fairly quickly. Credit cards are not necessarily needed to conduct business on the net, if for example, banking can be conducted from your PC , and major banks are moving that way. A couple weeks ago, there was a special news programme on NHK called "Close up Gendai" which airs 4 times a week, I think, and covers in depth news items or trends in society. It was on the slump in the sales of new cars and how some dealers using the internet had managed to post decent sales . Actually the internet services discussed were farmed out to third party operators who negotiated directly with dealers on behalf of customers. The one featured had sold 20 cars a month with four employees only. These are big ticket items and do not involve the use of a credit card anyway. There is also frequently talks of using the internet to monitor health care at home, using sensor and medical instruments installed by the health agencies to report on some predetermined parameters (blood pressure, cardiac rate, even a camera that monitors you during your sleep and calculates your breathing rate etc ) of the elderly, all using the internet to relay the information to local nursing centers. So in all, I think the Japanese realize the net will be big. I think it will find its markets and win on its own merits, however the areas where it is developed may differ slightly than the ones we know back in North Am.