Asiajin

Amazon Web Services LLC, an Amazon’s company which manages and sells cloud computing services like EC2, S3, CloudFront, etc., is turned out to open its Japanese subsidiary Amazon Data Services Japan at unknown time in 2009, talked by one of their two employees at Japan Amazon EC2 Users Group, a blog Publickey reported [J].

At the users group with 30 attendees, the only name-known employee, Hideki Ojima, a Japan marketing manager, who worked for Adobe Japan as a lead of developers marketing, told that they are seeking employees for several positions to expand.

He also talked that Amazon US recognizes Japanese enterprises need different approaches, that’s why the subsidiary was established.

Amazon is said to plan its second Asian data centre in the latter half of this year 2010, following to the first one in Singapore. Ojima did not answer if the second location will be Japan or not.

Tags: Japan, Singapore, USA by Akky Akimoto
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One of Japan’s largest online drug retailers Kenko.com[J] announced it had launched a subsidiary[J] last September in Singapore, which is intended for avoiding the possible violation of the new law banning online drug sales and for serving the company’s customers by the personal import scheme. (Refer to this Akky’s story and that Shun-ichi’s story for more about the ban.)   Users can purchase non-prescription Japanese drugs on Kenko.com Singapore’s website and receive them via international courier service. The subsidiary’s service is intended for Japanese residents for the time being, and Japanese communities outside Japan and the other Asian countries are also targeted as the company’s potential online retail market.

Some 2,500 items are available on the website, your drugs will need around one week to reach you after placing an order. An order worth less than USD89 (JPY8,000) requires a USD7.22 (JPY650) S&H charge.

Kenko.com CEO Genri Goto says, bringing OTC(over the counter) drugs to Japanese customers from outside Japan is NOT regarded as violating the new pharmaceutical affair law banning online drug sales according to Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The company expects to serve in English and Chinese as well as Japanese, and to be the largest online drug retailer in the Asian region.

Due to the new law effective last June in the country, specifically elderly people living in rural areas or on isolated islands have difficulty in getting supplements and drugs via mail order, and a number of long-standing and small-sized traditional drug manufacturers are facing hard times to survive.

Tags: Company, Japan, News, Singapore by Masaru IKEDA
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Batara Eto, who suggested to make a Japanese social network to his boss in late 2003 and programmed Japan’s biggest social network Mixi, let the company (E-mercury) to change their primary business and rename (to “Mixi”, of course) with the huge success, then left his CTO job in 2007 [J], is reported to invest to Xsago, Singapore-based mobile application company. He also assumes a post as Technical Advisor .

Known by his success story with Mixi and his advocacy for open source, he was rumoured to run his own small tech start-up to develop something, which was recently disclosed as a new online photo sharing site Ficia, which is under private beta. I tried Ficia and it seems to aim better photo sharing experience, such like what Gmail did against Hotmail to Flickr, by using plenty of latest web technology. Let’s hope Ficia is not fishy

Xsago’s mobile application Foyage is explained as a location based utility tool to give you shop information around you, currently covers Singapore and Indonesia, where Eto originally came from.

(Hat tip to beeant)

See Also:

Batara Eto’s interview when he led Mixi development [J]

Interview about his new start-up Etolabo and its first service Ficia [J]

Tags: Japan, News, Singapore by Akky Akimoto
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Hiroyuki Nishibuya, founder of Japan’s biggest anonymous BBS 2ch.net (Ni-Channel), revealed that he had transferred the ownership of 2ch.net to oversea on his blog.

The FAQ on 2ch.net was modified, too.

Q Who owns 2ch?

A 2ch.net is managed and operated by PACKET MONSTER INC.

2ch.net has been at the heart of libel lawsuits in decade since it established in 1999. Those lawsuits targeted at Hiroyuki as individual, and freedom of speech on 2ch.net has been somewhat kept by his attitude to emphasis those suing people getting more and more attentions from 2ch users.

The tribuneship of 2ch is now handed to a company PACKET MONSTER INC., which looks in Singapore. I think this is to avoid farther suits by removing the existence of the service from Japan, i.e. Hiroyuki still owns the service via the paper company. The servers of 2ch is always explained to be run in USA from its beginning. Now it becomes much more complicated to take legal action to 2ch.net in Japan.

Tags: Japan, News, Singapore by Akky Akimoto
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E27 Singapore, An entrepreneur group, will be organizing the 5th Unconference on the 12th of July 2008.

The event has a startup demo session and a break out (unconference style discussion) session. Also there are demo booths of startup companies too.

It seems that startups like yum.sg (gourmet guide), eteract (online dating side) are going to talk. If you are not joining the conference, it’s worth to see their list of startups, it’s a rare occasion to look at Singaporean startups.

It’s a pity that I cannot make it there.

Date: 12th July 2008
Time: 11:30am to 6:00pm
Venue: Matrix@Biopolis
Ticket Price: $10 (if you sign up before 10th July)

Tags: Community, Singapore by Shunichi Arai
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