* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E 'S T A K E * * * * * * *<br><div class="gmail_quote">A weekly roundup of news & information from Terrie Lloyd.<br>(<a href="http://www.terrie.com" target="_blank">http://www.terrie.com</a>)<br>
<br>General Edition Sunday, March 25 2012, Issue No. 655<br>
<br>+++ INDEX<br><br>- What's New -- Datacenter Sector Heating Up<br>- News -- Tsunami fishing boat floats to Canada<br>- Upcoming Events<br>- Corrections/Feedback <br>- News Credits<br><br>SUBSCRIBE to, UNSUBSCRIBE from Terrie's Take at:<br>
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e-mail us at <a href="mailto:info@pbxl.jp" target="_blank">info@pbxl.jp</a> or call us at 03-4550-2557<br><br>------------ PBXL is BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS --------------<br><br>+++ WHAT'S NEW<br><br>The datacenter industry is undergoing some major changes <br>
which will make 2012 an interesting year for the industry. <br>Firstly, the big trend -- reliable high-speed internet, <br>smart phones, and online applications have made remote <br>applications sufficiently viable that even conservative <br>
Japanese firms are buying them. It already seems "quaint" <br>to think of companies rolling out thousands of individual <br>software packages on PCs one by one all around the company <br>network. We don't have numbers on the percentage of <br>
companies in Japan switching to web applications, but the <br>fact that Microsoft is phasing out B2B level resellers of <br>package software by 2014 gives us some idea.<br><br>This trend has created a new generation of companies, of <br>
which Salesforce.com is just the advance "scout". There <br>isn't a business sector that isn't being touched by the <br>change, and Japanese firms are buying subscriptions in such<br>diverse areas as accounting, factory automation, FX and <br>
stock trading, internet marketing, medical diagnosis, <br>online content, SNS, trade, and much more. Almost weekly we<br>hear of yet another online apps firm selling to major <br>accounts in Japan and being requested as a result to set up<br>
a support presence here.<br><br>Secondly, an accelerating factor in the industry has been <br>the 3/11 earthquake that struck last year. Yahoo's <br>datacenter subsidiary IDC Frontier has said that inquiries <br>on datacenter hosting is up 600% over pre-earthquake times.<br>
MIC Research says that the data center market is up at <br>least 8% this fiscal year, and will reach JPY1.9trn by <br>March 2016. Companies have realized that housing one's own <br>servers is not smart in times of emergency. Indeed, it <br>
doesn't really make sense in normal times, either, now that<br>you can host company-wide applications from zero manpower <br>services epitomized by Amazon and provided by many other <br>data center companies. <br><br>
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<br>---------- YOUR BOTTOM LINE IS OUR TOP PRIORITY------------<br><br>[...Article continues]<br><br>A direct beneficiary of this soaring demand is the <br>datacenter infrastructure market, which comprises routers, <br>switches and other "infrastructure" equipment that goes <br>
into the racks alongside the servers. According to IDC, <br>this market in 2010 was worth JPY50.564bn, a big 18.4% jump<br>over the previous year, and is expected to grow another <br>9.1% in FY2011. <br><br>This segment number doesn't include servers, which are the <br>
other big ticket item going into datacenters, and on this <br>level, we see significant action by the big makers such as <br>Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, and IBM, as well as trading <br>companies building out their own platforms. It's pretty <br>
clear that rather than wait for large customers to drop <br>billions of yen with competitor with a better value <br>proposition, they have realized that they'd better get into <br>the datacenter game themselves and offer the hardware <br>
as a service.<br><br>Dell has done exactly this, announcing just last week that <br>it plans to set up as many as 20 new datacenters around <br>Asia. The first of these will be in India, followed by <br>China. What about Japan? Apparently Dell is planning to <br>
service Japan out of China. This is a common theme by some <br>other firms as well, with HP saying earlier in the month <br>that it will open a datacenter in Tianjin later this year <br>and offer datacenter services for about 1/3 Japanese <br>
prices. Hitachi is doing something similar in Hong Kong <br>with Data backup, offering storage for 50% discounts.<br><br>However we don't know if Japanese firms will be comfortable<br>buying datacenter space offshore, particularly if it is in <br>
China. Cheap land and labor may result in cheaper prices, <br>but that doesn't mean much if data is stolen by outsourced <br>workers, "appropriated" by a government agency, or the <br>datacenter itself suffers power or building failures from <br>
substandard work. We have heard some disturbing stories <br>about building failures and lack of security in Chinese <br>datacenters in particular. Rather, if a firm wants to <br>store/process data at lower prices, it would make a lot <br>
more sense to do it from the USA, especially if a few <br>milliseconds of latency are a non-issue.<br><br>In the meantime, there appears to be plenty of demand for <br>local datacenter space, even if the prices are higher than <br>
elsewhere. Here in Tokyo, the largest datacenter that we <br>know of is @Tokyo, which operates a massive 130,000 sq. m. <br>facility. The company has no shortage of takers for its <br>space, partly because it is a primary provider for the <br>
financial sector. Close on their heels is Internet <br>Initiative Japan (IIJ), which will open a large new <br>datacenter at Mitaka, in the west of Tokyo, in October. <br>This will be IIJ's seventh datacenter nationally.<br>
<br>Because of the earthquake, there is also a demand for <br>datacenters in Western Japan, as companies try to spread <br>their risk -- particularly with the recent predictions of <br>a big quake hitting Tokyo in the next few years. This week,<br>
STNet, part of Shikoku Electric, announced that it will <br>spend JPY30bn to build a 36,000 sq. m. datacenter in <br>Kagawa. With new racking systems, this is sufficient space <br>for about 80,000 servers. The facility will take at least 5<br>
years to complete and will be the largest in Western <br>Japan. <br><br>All this activity, and there are new facilities <br>announcements almost daily, means we're probably entering <br>another bubble in datacenters, although probably smaller <br>
than the one experienced in dotcom bust which left <br>many datacenter operators bankrupt. The inflating interest <br>can be confirmed by the fact that property investors are <br>back in the game. Mitsubishi has just announced that it has<br>
started a real estate fund that invests solely in <br>datacenters. Invested in by various domestic institutional <br>investors and pension funds, the fund has already raised <br>JPY25.8bn. <br><br>Happy days are here again?<br>
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<br>+++ NEWS<br><br>- Ishinomaki records large RE price increases<br>- Tsunami fishing boat floats to Canada<br>- Warmer weather on the way?<br>- Land prices to keep falling?<br>- Pension funds pay out more than earnings<br>
<br><br><br>-> Ishinomaki records large RE price increases<br><br>Even as Japan's average land prices dropped another 2.6% <br>nationwide, Ishinomaki and other areas hit by the 3/11 <br>earthquake recorded strong price increases. The Land <br>
Ministry's annual land price report shows that inland and <br>higher-ground properties in Miyagi-ken and particularly <br>around Ishinomaki sold for an average JPY22,500 per sq. m. <br>over the last year compared with 2010. This comprises a <br>
surprising 61% increase and contrasts with a 1.5% decrease <br>in prices for Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya. (Source: TT <br>commentary from <a href="http://bloomberg.com" target="_blank">bloomberg.com</a>, Mar 22, 2012)<br><br>
<a href="http://bloom.bg/GWlViJ" target="_blank">http://bloom.bg/GWlViJ</a> <br>
<br>-> Tsunami fishing boat floats to Canada<br><br>A Canadian national defense airplane has spotted a crewless <br>Japanese fishing boat floating 150 nautical miles from the <br>coast of British Columbia. The vessel appears to have come <br>
from Hokkaido and a Notice to Shipping has been issued <br>identifying it as an obstruction to navigation. The boat is<br>the first evidence of a massive junk pile believed to be <br>floating towards Canada. Apparently about 5m tons of debris<br>
were swept into the sea from the Tohoku-hit areas. (Source:<br>TT commentary from <a href="http://ajc.com" target="_blank">ajc.com</a>, Mar 24, 2012)<br><br>-> Warmer weather on the way?<br><br>The Japan Meteorological Agency has issued a long-term <br>
forecast predicting a 30%-40% chance that the nation will <br>have warmer than normal weather for the April-June period. <br>Although it's not known whether this means a <br>hotter-than-normal summer as experienced in 2010, <br>
apparently power companies are anticipating this, and are <br>expecting a repeat of 2010 when power consumption during <br>the hottest periods was 2% higher than normal. ***Ed: If <br>you are able, it may be a good idea to book a longer then <br>
normal summer holiday this year and avoid the worst of it <br>in August.** (Source: TT commentary from <a href="http://reuters.com" target="_blank">reuters.com</a>, Mar <br>22, 2012)<br><br><a href="http://reut.rs/GWbFoe" target="_blank">http://reut.rs/GWbFoe</a><br>
<br>-> Land prices to keep falling?<br><br>Interesting commentary from the Nikkei this last week, if <br>somewhat simplistic. They posit that Japan's land prices <br>will continue falling even if the pace of those falls has <br>
slowed recently. In essence the Nikkei reckons that <br>foreigners and foreign companies fleeing Japan have had a <br>specific local effect on real estate in the Kanto, while <br>off-shoring movement of major Japanese firms and a <br>
shrinking population of workers (15-64 years) in general <br>are having a longer-term effect on demand and therefore <br>prices. (Source: TT commentary from <a href="http://e.nikkei.com" target="_blank">e.nikkei.com</a>, Mar 23, <br>
2012)<br>
<br><a href="http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20120322D2203A08.htm" target="_blank">http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20120322D2203A08.htm</a><br><br>-> Pension funds pay out more than earnings<br><br>A report from the Welfare Ministry shows that over 50% of <br>
the nation's 578 major private pension funds, i.e., mostly <br>those run by major companies for their employees, are <br>paying out more cash in benefits than they are receiving in <br>income. Furthermore, of these 314 companies in negative <br>
territory, 16 of them will run out of money in less than 10<br>years. The Ministry says that those funds in trouble will <br>either have to reduce benefits or increase fees, to stay <br>viable. ***Ed: Not something that millions of big company <br>
employees will want to hear.** (Source: TT commentary from <br><a href="http://e.nikkei.com" target="_blank">e.nikkei.com</a>, Mar 24, 2012)<br><br><a href="http://e.nikkei.com/e/ac/tnks/Nni20120323D2303A19.htm" target="_blank">http://e.nikkei.com/e/ac/tnks/Nni20120323D2303A19.htm</a><br>
<br><br><br>NOTE: Broken links<br>Many online news sources remove their articles after just a<br>few days of posting them, thus breaking our links -- we<br>apologize for the inconvenience.<br><br>***------------------------****-------------------------***<br>
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<br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>***------------------------****-------------------------***<br><br>+++ UPCOMING EVENTS/ANNOUNCEMENTS<br><br>----- Offshoring, Outsourcing & Shared Services Japan -----<br>
<br>Statistics show that roughly 80% of companies listed on the<br>Tokyo Stock Exchange have implemented or plan to set up <br>shared services initiatives over the next 12-24 months.<br><br>Responding to overwhelming feedback from the first annual<br>
event, we are delighted to announce that the second annual<br>Shared Services, Outsourcing and Offshoring Summit JAPAN<br>has now been scheduled for July 19-20 in Tokyo.<br>(Please note that this event features dual language <br>
translation in English & Japanese).<br><br>What’s new in 2012?<br>Broader marketplace outlook<br>Chief Finance Officer spotlight<br>Chief Information Officer spotlight<br>Chief Human Resources Officer spotlight<br><br>
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-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>***------------------------****-------------------------***<br><br>+++ CORRECTIONS/FEEDBACK<br><br>In this section we run comments and corrections submitted<br>
by readers. We encourage you to spot our mistakes and<br>amplify our points, by email, to <a href="mailto:editors@terrie.com" target="_blank">editors@terrie.com</a>.<br><br>*** No corrections or feedback this week.<br><br>
***------------------------****-------------------------***<br>
<br>***********************************************************<br>END<br><br>SUBSCRIBERS: 8,142 members as of Mar 25, 2012<br>(We purge our list regularly.)<br><br>+++ ABOUT US<br><br>STAFF<br>Written by: Terrie Lloyd (<a href="mailto:terrie.lloyd@japaninc.com" target="_blank">terrie.lloyd@japaninc.com</a>)<br>
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or, <a href="http://mailman.japaninc.com/pipermail/terrie/" target="_blank">http://mailman.japaninc.com/pipermail/terrie/</a><br><br>Copyright 2012 Japan Inc. Communications Inc.<br><br>----------------- Japan Inc opens up Japan ----------------<br>
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