The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business

By Philip Sugai, Marco Koeder, & Ludovico Ciferri

Monday, April 12, 2010 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm

(The speech and Q & A will be in English)

Myths are difficult to kill. And one of the oldest myths of the digital era is, that Japan’s highly developed mobile Internet universe is an exotic Galapagos-island with little meaning for the rest of the world. But recently three foreign, Japan based insiders of the mobile industry - Philip Sugai, Marco Koeder and Ludovico Ciferri - set out to correct this myth. In their recently published book, “The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business,” the trio argues that despite of the iPhone and the recent rise of the mobile
Internet in America and Europe, Japan is not only still the biggest field-laboratory of the mobile net, but also offers valuable hints for successful business models of carriers and especially content and service
providers all over the world.

What makes their approach so unique is the fact that the authors can combine years of academic analysis and hands-on experience on the front lines of the mobile Internet with interviews of pioneers of the mobile age like Takeshi Natsuno, one of the fathers of the i-mode, Keisuke Onishi, the founder of
Navitime or Tomoko Namba, the founder of the Internet service DeNA. Philip Sugai is professor at the International University of Japan, Marco Koeder works at the online contents developer Cyber Media, and Ludovico Ciferri as researcher at Mobile Internet Capital.

The authors describe how Japan’s mobile carriers avoided the trap to hunt for quick returns and chose the role of gardeners who carefully nurture a flourishing “ecosystem.” The universal value of this concept has been proven by the recent success of global giants like Apple and Google. In addition to business models, the book analyzes the biggest success stories in Japan to give the global industry practical hints on creating appealing sites and content. The authors also highlight the concept of simplicity as the key of
success: combining a complex, high-tech device with an enriched service while ensuring that both are intuitive to use. If you want to understand why the mobile internet after its breakthrough in Japan became a global success, you surely don’t want to miss this book break.

A dinner will be served at a cost of 1,850 yen (including tax). Sign up　now at the reception desk (3211-3161) or online at　http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/5504. To help us plan proper seating and food　preparation, please reserve in advance, preferably by noon of the day of the event. Those without reservations will be turned away once available seats are filled.

Reservations cancelled less than 24 hours in advance will be charged in full.

Library Committee, THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS' CLUB OF JAPAN