Spencer Wolfe

I am not sure how good of a deal this is. Usen already sells this services and makes no money apparently.

The big concern is all the data is in the US under a US company. Is that a good idea for a Japanese firm? We’ll see what they decide.

Quoted from here.

Softbank, Google Joining Forces On Cloud Computing
TOKYO (Nikkei)–Softbank Corp. (9984) will market Google Inc.’s document-sharing and calendar services to businesses as part of a cloud computing alliance.

Softbank’s 003SH smartphone is powered by Google’s Android operating system.
Subsidiary Softbank Telecom Corp. will in February add the Google Apps platform — which allows users to view e-mails and in-house documents online and share schedules — to its corporate cloud computing service, dubbed White Cloud. It plans to charge 6,300 yen annually or 525 yen monthly. Other companies also sell Google Apps, but Softbank will be the first in the world to charge a monthly fee.

And by combining Softbank Mobile Corp. smartphones with Google’s Android operating system, customers will be able to connect directly to Google servers via Softbank’s cellular phone network. Since data will not be sent to the Internet under this setup, there is less danger of internal documents being leaked. Google Apps could also be sold as a set with smartphones.

Softbank will deploy specialist sales and support staff for Goggle Apps together with the Internet firm’s Japanese unit. Starting with around 20 personnel, the staff will be filled out gradually.

This is amazing! Getting faster and faster on the net. Japan and Korea probably still have the best internet access in the world.

Quoted for from here.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

NTT, Others Develop Ultra-Fast Net Technology
TOKYO (Nikkei)–Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (9432) and its partners have developed technology that enables household Internet connections with 1,000 times the data-carrying capacity of those currently available, it has been learned.

The team, which also includes the National Institute of Information & Communications Technology, NEC Corp. (6701), Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (6503), Hitachi Ltd. (6501), KDDI R&D Laboratories Inc. and Fujitsu Ltd. (6702), aims to make the technology commercially available by around 2020.

At present, optical fibers cannot transmit multiple types of signals simultaneously. The research team has come up with a device which, when connected to an optical fiber line, allows it to transmit four to 10 different signals at once. This raises the connection speed to 100 gigabits per second.

The test of the device, which was conducted on a 50km experimental line, enabled transmission of a 25-gigabyte image file — satellite photos of many parts of the world — in just two seconds.

The new technology, when it becomes widely available, will, for example, allow viewers to see images on a huge screen with four times the sharpness of current high-definition video. Possible applications for the technology include telemedicine and sophisticated home theater systems.

(The Nikkei Dec. 5 edition)