Dusseldorf-based E-Plus, the third largest wireless carrier in Germany, provides a much stronger presence for the companies in the much-coveted German wireless market, one of the largest in Europe and with potential for growth.
KPN, based in The Hague, loaned Atlanta-based BellSouth $9.4 billion to purchase Vodafone's and Veba's stakes. KPN will then convert the loan into a 77.49 percent share of BellSouth, the holding company that will own and run E-Plus.
BellSouth, as a 22.51 percent owner of E-Plus, first exercised its right-of-first-refusal to purchase Vodafone's 17.24 percent share and German utilities firms Veba and RWE's 60.25 percent share of E-Plus.
"KPN is an aggressive competitor with multiple wireless properties in Europe," said F. Duane Ackerman, chief executive of BellSouth. "We expect to have a very successful partnership that creates additional options for BellSouth in Europe."
Upon the closing, BellSouth and KPN will share control of E-Plus. The alliance stymies France Telecom's attempt to gain a foothold in the German wireless market. The French teleco earlier offered to buy the E-Plus stakes owned by Vodafone, Veba and RWE.
In more financial moves, BellSouth has the option to convert its stake in E-Plus into a 19 percent ownership interest in KPN or a stake in KPN Mobile of equivalent value. KPN Mobile is a holding company for all of KPN's wireless investments, and is expected to go public in the first half of 2000.
BellSouth also has agreed to make up to $3 billion of loans to KPN to be used for further wireless investments in Europe. Related to the loans, BellSouth will receive warrants to purchase approximately 52 million additional shares of KPN.
BellSouth said it may consider giving more loans of up to $5 billion to provide KPN financing for acquisitions of wireless carriers in Europe. These additional loans, if made, would be convertible into shares of KPN Mobile. TOKYO--Sony, the consumer electronics giant, said it plans to form an Internet bank in Japan in 2001, its latest move to attract consumers with a gamut of online services.
The company, based here, will decide by year-end whether to buy an existing or failed bank or to apply for a banking license itself as it pushes to enable customers to settle bills and arrange loans online. It is targeting 1 trillion yen ($9.8 billion) in deposits for individuals only, meaning it would need fewer resources to set up the business.
Sony plans to provide at least half the capital for the new bank, and may ask financial companies to join an equity alliance, said corporate senior executive vice president Masayoshi Morimoto.
"The Internet business will become big," Morimoto said. "We believe Internet banking has a bright future."
The company is only the latest from outside the industry to enter the banking world as Japan's Big Bang reforms open the gates to newcomers. Increasing use of the Internet could eliminate the need for a bricks-and-mortar branch network and give companies with an online presence a cost advantage.
"Sony will achieve great management efficiency by combining Internet and banking businesses," said Nobuaki Kurisu, senior fund manager at Sumisei Global Investment Trust Management, who owns Sony stock and helps manage about 350 billion yen ($3.4 billion) in assets. "Sony always comes up with great business plans and will continue to surprise investors."
The maker of the best-selling PlayStation home video game machine already operates wholly owned units in life insurance, casualty insurance and finance. Sony Life Insurance, which generates about 5 percent of Sony's overall revenue, posted growth in its individual policy holdings in the year ended March 31 even as most of Japan's traditional life insurers saw their holdings fall. Sony Assurance sells auto insurance by telephone and Internet, while Sony Finance International issues credit cards and offers leases.
Earlier this year Sony and former Goldman, Sachs partner Oki Matsumoto formed Monex Securities, an Internet financial services provider, to offer the lowest commissions on trades of 50 million yen (about $489,000) or less after Japan liberalized stock trading fees on Oct. 1.
Last week, Sony set up a financial services business development division to discuss details of the new online banking business, including how it will be established, the type of services it will offer and a business plan.
While companies such as Sony and Ito-Yokado, Japan's largest retailer, can point to their vast networks and consumer base as advantages as they try to form Internet banks, the industry is still in a nascent stage in Japan.
Running an online bank requires specialized staff and skills, analysts said. "Sony will be successful in some parts of the banking business, for example in settling accounts," said Makoto Ueno, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research. Ueno cited Sony's leadership in developing wireless Internet access and other technologies needed to build online businesses as strengths. That apart, "Sony has no staff in consulting," he said.
An option may be to buy a failed or existing bank. Among the existing banks Sony could buy is Nippon Credit Bank, Japan's 14th largest bank until it was nationalized last December. "Sony doesn't like bad assets. Sony won't buy bad companies, even if they are very cheap," said Daiwa's Ueno.
Ito-Yokado said last month it's bidding for Nippon Credit, along with Softbank, Japan's largest Internet investment company; Orix, the country's biggest leasing company; and Tokio Marine and Fire Insurance, Japan's top non-life insurer.
Ito-Yokado may also offer banking services through some of its 9,300 outlets, which include its Seven-Eleven Japan subsidiary, department stores and restaurants. Softbank, the $45 billion Internet financier, plans to open an online bank next year as the centerpiece of an online financial services mall now under construction.
Copyright 1999, Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved. Palm Computing will receive the six millionth U.S. patent in a Washington ceremony today, in recognition of the company's HotSync technology.
3Com's technology to synchronize information stored on Palm handheld devices with users' desktop and notebook computers will be formally granted the patent by officials from the Commerce Department and the Patent and Trademark Office, said sources close to the company. Palm, which is expected to spin off from 3Com as a public company sometime next February, recently expanded the HotSync concept to allow corporate employees to synchronize their devices with databases of corporate information.
More than a fortuitous event for 3Com, the milestone patent reflects Silicon Valley's increasing emphasis on protecting its intellectual property in the face of faster-than-ever product development cycles, piracy and technology infringement lawsuits.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Palm declined to comment, citing the quiet period mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission preceding any initial public offering.
The initial HotSync technology was developed by Palm co-founder Jeff Hawkins, who is expected to participate in the event. Hawkins left Palm last year along with co-founder Donna Dubinsky to start Handspring, which recently launched its first product, the Visor, based upon the Palm design and software.
Along with Hawkins and the sundry "high level" government officials, Palm president Alan Kessler will be in attendance. Recently named Palm CEO Carl Yankowski will not be there, sources say, since he doesn't officially start until Dec. 13.
Palm Computing makes the popular Palm handheld devices, which currently account for almost three-fourths of all digital organizers sold. Initially designed to organize contacts, calendars and to-do lists, devices of this type have become the focus of attention as a potentially important way to access Internet and corporate information via wireless communication technologies.
The threat of the Babylonia virus has diminished now that an Internet site it used to update itself has been shut down.
Antivirus software maker TrendMicro said the disconnection of a Web site in Japan called SOKA4EVER reduces the risk of the Babylonia virus to "low." The virus, which appeared Monday, relied on the site to store software that could be downloaded to the infected computer, raising the possibility of a virus whose behavior changes.
The Web site is owned by Source of Kaos, TrendMicro said. The sourceofkaos.com Web site was closed down after the Melissa virus was released last spring, but the site re-emerged as SOKA4EVER.
A virus is a piece of software that spreads copies of itself from one computer to another. Some viruses are benign but others cause damage such as the destruction of files. The widespread use of email, combined with the use of more elaborate email messages, has provided an effective new means for viruses to spread.
Although antivirus companies provide software features that claim to detect viruses by their behavior, many new viruses still slip under the radar, requiring that customers update their antivirus software frequently.
Meanwhile, a new version of an existing self-replicating email virus has been discovered, but it has yet to cause major problems, antivirus software makers said.
The virus, a variant of the Worm.ExploreZip virus called Worm.ExploreZip.Neolite.it, can automatically send itself to email addresses located on people's hard drives and can delete Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Security experts say the virus isn't a threat yet.
Antivirus software maker Computer Associates said the virus has affected two of its customers. Symantec, however, said it has received no reports from customers and doesn't believe it's been released in the "wild," or infected users at large.
"It's not something that will cause real harm now, but it's something people should be aware of," said Narender Mangalam, CA's security director.
The new virus affects users of Microsoft email software on Windows machines. It arrives as a compressed file as part of an email message and can spread when users click on the file. The infected attachment is titled "File_Zipputi.exe."
The new virus comes in a larger file and includes Italian text instead of English, said Mangalam. CA has updated its antivirus software to detect the new virus.
Because the virus comes with Italian text, a Symantec spokeswoman said the company doesn't expect many people will click on the attachment and cause a virus outbreak.
Svelte, attractive PCs are all the rage in the United States, partially thanks to Japan.
Small is big in the second-largest PC market in the world, and the result has been a progression of ever-thinner mobile computers and slimmer desktops which pack in moderate yet compelling features. Now, American PC makers are beginning to take some cues.
The trend toward using magnesium cases to make ultrathin notebooks, for instance, first emerged from Mitsubishi and caught fire with Sony's Vaio. A number of U.S. manufacturers have since adopted magnesium cases for superslim designs.
In another example, one of the Japanese market's most pronounced trends appears to be the "Ekisho Desukutopu", or LCD desktop computer. The design is currently making its way to U.S. consumers. Gateway was one of the first to bring an all-in-one flat panel originally for the Japanese market, its Profile PC, to the United States. Dell late last month released its WebPC, a cylindrical consumer PC with a flat panel option.
"Japan is an
|
On the cutting edge of design Japanese companies have been behind some key new designs and technologies: |
|
Hi-Note Ultra (1995): First successful ultrathin notebook designed by
DEC, made by Citizen. Sony Vaio Z505: This ultrathin is all the rage this year. Sony music clip: This tiny electronic clip saves music for playback on the PC. Super-slim DVD drives: Toshiba, Matsushita, others make these for space-saving desktops and notebooks. LCDs: Japan pioneered commerical production of LCDs and supplies many of the thin LCDs on notebooks and builds many of the all-in-one LCD desktops. |
Although an oft-cited lack of space plays a role, miniature is Japan's reigning aesthetic. Both attributes have spawned a market less concerned with performance and more attuned to size.
Meanwhile, Japanese style seems to be growing everywhere in the United States these days. Japanese animation, ranging in from Pokemon to the film Princess Mononoke, is gaining in popularity.
U.S. manufacturers are taking these lessons to heart. Along with the WebPC from Dell, HP and Compaq will come out with streamlined, miniaturized, colorful PCs for the corporate market next year.
Sony released a number of slick gadgets at Comdex this year. Music Clip, for instance, uses a built-in 64MB flash memory chip to allow copying of music for playback on its PCs. Along with new products, the company has started a magazine, Sony Style, and opened retail outlets like San Francisco's Metreon.
The forces that drive this new technology include "the need for miniaturization of everything which is driven by the spatial realities in Japan [and the fact that] Japanese companies have a very different R&D model. Since they are not short-term profit driven they can do many experiments to see what works," Everett said.
Everett also points out that Japan is also on the cutting edge of application of the smallest of devices--cell phones and pagers. "What is also going on in Japan that caught my eye was the use of wireless. Email is flying via cell phones...This was the seed that caused me to cultivate relationships with Aironet," he added. (See related article)
Toshiba supplies many of the slim DVD-ROM drives for notebooks. Other innovations are expected in the future, according to industrial designers. One change that may occur: flexible battery material. This will allow designers to hide batteries in irregular-shaped recesses in product designs.
More than any other U.S. computer maker, IBM has been at the vanguard of bringing designs first marketed in Japan to the States. IBM has a long history of selling computers in that market and runs a massive Japan-based operation which includes some of Big Blue's best R&D facilities, a thriving PC business and a manufacturing concern that produces LCD screens.
The design of IBM's sleekest laptop computers, including the first popular thin notebook from any PC maker, the ThinkPad 560, is done primarily at research facility in Yamato, Japan. IBM for many years has also sold handheld notebooks in Japan, a concept just now making its way across the Pacific in the form of products such as the WorkPad z50.
Dwarfish designs popular in Japan are an opportunity to break from the past, according David Hill, who is the Design Manager for IBM's Personal Systems Group and handles industrial design for all of IBM's personal computer products.
"The PC hasn't basically changed since the early 1980s. You can change the color but it's still the same box. New form factors give us a chance to change the fundamental building blocks [of the PC and] opens up new areas of exploration."
Behind the success of many of the popular IBM ThinkPad models is Richard Sapper, a consultant for IBM who has also designed a number of highly-acclaimed gadgets including the Tizio Lamp, an item on display at the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum. Sapper has consulted for companies including Daimer-Benz, Fiat and Siemens and works in concert with the IBM development team in Japan, according to Hill.
"His idea is a simple black box that reveals itself as a computer," said Hill.
IBM ironically has not recently turned any heads with novel ThinkPad or desktop designs, but will try to change that in the coming year. Hill said that there are designs in the works that stress portability and wireless connections in the home.
These computers will put less stress on gee-whiz technology and more on practicality. "It's like a cupholder in a mini-van," he says, emphasizing that an obsession with computer "speeds-and-feeds" overlooks simple necessities sometimes.
Tastes they are a-changin'
Along with these utilitarian forces, tastes are changing in the United States. Consumers, for instance, are now beginning to crave the same tiny notebooks
that the Japanese do, evidenced by the popularity of ultrasmall notebooks
including Sony's Vaio, Compaq's M300 and IBM's ThinkPad 240 as well as
those from Toshiba, Taiwan's Acer, Sharp, and Fujitsu.
If the trends seen in Japanese computer magazines can be considered a glimpse of the future of the PC, it may be interesting indeed. Japanese PC monthlies are chock full of advertisements and articles--along with a copious helping of photographs of scantily-dressed woman clutching computers--about tiny notebooks and space-saving desktops. Dell Japan, for instance, more often than not does full-page glossies of only its slimmest computers. In Besuto PC ("Best PC"), a monthly publication, a Dell advertisement for its thin desktop shows an accompanying graphic on how it saves space. The Dell advertisement on the following page shows its newest ultraslim notebooks.
Advertising pages are also crammed with desktop PCs coupled with 15-inch LCDs from Compaq Japan, NEC, Fujitsu, Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic and Akia aimed at the home.
"The largest market for LCD monitors is Japan," IBM's Hill said. IBM Japan has been ahead of the United States unit in moving to more portable desktop computers. Hill said IBM sells an all-in-one LCD-based desktop only in Japan because the market demands it.
But ultimately not all of this will fly, according to analysts. "Japan feeds us to some degree, but it's a bit of a red herring. Some of their designs seem odd to us, even if they are more compact," according to Roger Kay, an analyst at International Data Corp.
"Most products coming here from there need some modification." But he adds: "In the history of electronic design, however, Japan has done well with small cool devices. There's no reason to believe that the Japanese won't have a larger role in PC design, as style becomes a more important buying criterion here in the US."
Calls made to online retailers' customer service centers can mean hold times of 10 minutes or longer--if you are able to get through at all, an informal survey by CNET News.com found.
One call to Seattle-based Amazon.com's service center, for example, resulted in 30 minutes of on-hold time before it was disconnected, an outcome that apparently surprised even the e-tail giant.
"That seems like an unusual occurrence. Call times vary," company spokesman Paul Capelli said.
Fielding customer service calls well could be crucial for online retailers this holiday season, which is expected to produce record electronic sales. With the competition only a click away, time is of the essence.
"Consumers are increasingly expecting to have individual contact," said Mike May, digital commerce analyst at New York-based Jupiter Communications. "As the range of products for sale online expands from books and music to furniture and jewelry, consumers are going to want to have a little more reassurance before pushing the 'submit' button."
Many online stores offer abundant information on their sites to answer customer questions, through designated areas such as FAQs (frequently asked questions). But consumers often turn to customer call centers for more direct and specific answers--especially during the holidays.
As a deluge of
calls reach customer service centers, some e-tailers seem to be having a difficult time handling the load. A call placed to Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Buy.com's service center Thursday warned of hold times that could last 25 minutes or longer. A call placed to Denver-based KBkids.com Wednesday night lasted more than 10 minutes without an answer.
Traditional businesses such as Federal Express and Lands' End have raised the bar for all businesses when it comes to phone service, said Bob Catham, customer relations analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. Such companies have a standard of answering the phone "on the first ring," Chatham said, adding that some online retailers may be hard-pressed to match this.
"There are some pretty well-established standards for how a retailer should perform over the phone," Catham said. "I think e-tailers are going to have to match what these bricks-and-mortar vendors are doing now."
Krista Pappas, an e-commerce analyst with Gomez Advisors in New York, estimated hold times of five minutes or more could prove unacceptable to consumers.
Some online retailers turned in good results in CNET's informal survey. Calls to Gap Online, CDnow and Barnesandnoble.com were all answered after less than a minute on hold. Despite troubles Toysrus.com has faced in recent weeks with keeping its site up and running, a call to its service center was answered almost immediately by a service representative.
A representative at CDnow in Fort Washington, Penn., said the online music retailer has seen calls to its service center go up about 200 percent during the holiday shopping season. The company has augmented its service staff to handle the increased volume.
Amazon's Capelli declined to give statistics on the number of calls Amazon's service center receives or the average hold time customers experience, but said the company doubled its number of customer service representatives in preparation for holiday shoppers.
The e-commerce leader also has attempted to make its site easy to use so customers can help themselves purchase items, Capelli said.
E-commerce analyst Barry Parr at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass., said the stakes are high for e-tailers when it comes to customer service, especially those that don't enjoy Amazon's lofty position.
"If you lose somebody through complete nondelivery of customer service, that's worse than losing them through slow servers or site outages," Parr said. "That's really the thing that causes people not to come back. Of all the things you can do, it's probably the worst."
Web portal AltaVista plans to announce Monday that it will use Homestead's technology to power its home page builder service.
Homestead's page publishing capabilities will be featured on AltaVista Live, the portal's section for personalized news, finance and community offerings, according to an AltaVista spokesman. Menlo Park, Calif.-based Homestead allows users to build Web sites by dragging site elements, such as chat, news headlines and clip art, onto their home pages.
Home page publishing has become one of the more popular offerings on the Web. Proponents say users tend to spend more time and return more often to a home page service because they have a personal stake.
Popular home page communities such as GeoCities and Tripod have become acquisition targets for larger portals, such as Yahoo and Lycos, as they look to boost traffic and loyalty.
For Palo Alto, Calif.-based AltaVista, Homestead will be the latest in a string of deals to add more features to its service. Since CMGI acquired AltaVista in August for $2.3 billion, the portal has particularly focused on acquisitions and partnerships with CMGI-owned entities.
Just last week, AltaVista acquired stock and financial information site Raging Bull for an undisclosed amount. Previously, AltaVista began offering free ISP service 1stUp.com, which CMGI eventually acquired.
Play video
There are currently no comments for this post.