(keitai-l) the usual entourage of Japan Bashing foreign press???

From: James Governor <jgovernor_at_illuminata.com>
Date: 11/21/01
Message-ID: <1463EABFC443C045853E539C9DB516CC091572@zeus.illuminata.com>
haven't posted in a while, but i just wanted to say something about the
notion of "Japan bashing" by foreign agents.

one irritating thing about this list is the doublethink.

there are a number of contributors (many of whom i assume from their
names are not native Japanese) that have made regular postings to the
effect that outsiders don't and can't understand. that we don't see the
girls in Shibuya with their keitai and the businessmen looking on
longingly... so we will NEVER understand the DoCoMo model blah blah
blah. That argumement always seemed utter twaddle to me.

Another train of thought is that(and i agree with Mr Funk and others
here) DoCoMo succeeded because of its business model, with some
favourable market conditions that helped it arrive at this model.

What worries me is that "outsiders" have been castigated on this site in
the past and been told we can't understand because we aren't in Japan.
Now we are told, it seems, that all we need to do is stop bashing Japan
and we will understand. well - which is it? (of course i appreciate
there are different people on this list and so different voices)

Japan bashing? Well here's the news - maybe you haven't seen it because
you are in Japan, the beating heart of the mobile revolution. The fact
is that DoCoMo has been seen as a huge success by businessmen and folks
all over the world, and in the general, business, media and mobile press
and so on. Just check out BusinessWeek's coverage of NTT's successes,
for an example. Or just look at the way Sony is perceived.

If you saw the really negative media coverage on WAP in Europe (the
headline WAP is CWAP is a commonplace) and US mobile data models you
would realise that "Japan-bashing" is well wide of the mark. The
opposite is true - it's more like keitai envy. (and no, envy doesn't
always lead to bashing. hopefully it will lead to imitation)

We are here to learn. Please don't insult us for it.

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Received on Wed Nov 21 14:21:21 2001