Asiajin

Japan’s second largest telecom company KDDI announced yesterday that it would invest USD9M (JPY800M) on Banglaseshi largest ISP bracNet next January.   The rate of the diffusion of the Internet service in the country is as low as 2% despite the country is ranked as the world’s 7th in the number of the population.   With this investment, KDDI aims at developing infrastructures in the country and providing reasonable Internet services to the people.   KDDI plans to have 50% of all bracNet shares in accordance with the ISP’s request.

BracNet was co-founded by Tokyo- and San Francisco-based venture capital firm Defta Partners and and Dhaka-based non-profit organization BRAC in 2005, and is also known as the ISP edition of the country’s well-known community financial service Grameen Bank who has won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.     KDDI will send their four persons to the ISP’s board.   The ISP now owns and operates 110 Internet cafes all around the country,  and it also provides Internet connection service nationwide.

Tags: Community, Company, Japan, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Microsoft Japan announced yesterday that it would launch Windows Marketplace for Mobile in Japan next month.   The company already started the service in the U.S. last month.   Similarly to Apple’s AppStore and Google’s Android Market, mobile software developers will have opportunities to sell their application titles to Windows Mobile(WinMo) users all around the world.   As of this writing,  30 game app developers including Capcom, Konami and Prope[J] announced they would provide WinMo game apps at the market.

Plus, Tokyo-based long-standing comic publisher Shueisha[J] also tied up with Microsoft and announced the publisher would start distributing the well-known comic title Dragon Ball for Windows Mobile Phones in Japan, the U.S. and Europe in the beginning of next year.   The two companies are now working on developing collaboration services to engage more consumers, and they plan to introduce specially designed Internet Explorer tool bar and Windows desktop wallpapers featuring Shueisha’s cartoon characters.

Dragon Ball on Windows Phone   (c)Copyright Shueisha and Bird Studio

Tags: Cellular Phone, Company, Japan, New Service, News by Masaru IKEDA
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Facebook, which I think I do not need any explanation what it is to English web users, announced that they would open their Japanese arm in Tokyo early in 2010, ITMedia reports [J].

The branch, which is planned to be formed with developers from US and locally hired Japanese engineers and managers, will make a special version for Japanese cellphone, such like Twitter recently did for Japan market, and Japanese original features both for PC and cellphone.

Javier Oliván, International Manager at Facebook, told that Facebook overtaking the local No.1 like as they did in US, UK, Germany, Spain and Turkey, can be reproduced in Japan market against Mixi, Gree and Mobage-Town.

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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