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I’ve been attending Computex in Taipei this week and of particular interest to me this year is the WiMAX Expo and the growth potential of this technology.

Taipei, Reuters

Japanese electronics maker Fujitsu Ltd. said it aims for 100 billion yen (US$951 million) in sales of its WiMAX-use microchips in the year starting April 2011, up from virtually none in the year ended March 31.

A new high-speed Internet technology, WiMAX provides wireless data over long distances, allowing faster Internet downloads while on the move. WiFi, by contrast, only works near a transmitter.

WiMAX services will be launched on a commercial basis as early as this year in Taiwan. In Japan, a group led by KDDI Corp. plans to start WiMAX operations next year.

Fujitsu expects its power-efficient communication chips to drive the company’s overall WiMAX chip sales, Makoto Awaga, general manager of Fujitsu’s microchip unit, told Reuters at COMPUTEX yesterday. COMPUTEX is the world’s second-biggest computer show.

Energy efficiency is critical for any electronic component that goes into a mobile device as users seek extended use on a single battery.

The WiMAX chip sales target of 100 billion yen is about 2 percent of Fujitsu’s total revenues in the year to March 2008 of 5.3 trillion yen.

Awaga said the number of WiMAX users globally is likely to reach up to 50 million by 2012.

I hope Awaga is referring to Japan. I believe that global adoption will be both quick and far reaching and we should see the number well surpass 50 million before 2012. Getting WiMAX adoption in just a few major metropolises in eastern China will easily push the number past a hundred million.

“By 2011 or 2012, certain progress should have been made on commercial operations, and various services will have become available,” Awaga said.

“Counting users in the United States, Japan, BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), Asia, and part of Europe, the number will probably be about 40 to 50 million.”

A source in Europe has told me that unfortunately mobile access to the Internet especially while roaming is still extremely expensive for Europeans.

Awaga said, despite expectations by some industry specialists, WiMAX may not be competing with another high-speed telecommunications technology called Long Term Evolution (LTE) to be the fourth-generation mobile phone standard of choice.

“Fourth-generation services will be an improvement of the current third-generation services in one form or another. Voice communications are an integral part the new services,” Awaga said.

“WiMAX, on the other hand, focuses on speedier transmissions of data, setting aside voice communications. It is possible to carry voice over WiMAX. But I’m not sure if it makes very much sense,” Awaga said.

Sachio Semmoto, founder of Japanese broadband Internet and wireless company eAccess Ltd, said in May LTE will beat WiMAX in the race for 4G wireless networks because many large operators are throwing their weight behind it.

Although WiMAX counts Intel Corp as a supporter, LTE got ahead in the race after Vodafone, Verizon Wireless, China Mobile and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, have rallied behind it.

Shares in Fujitsu were down 1.4 percent at 841 yen in afternoon trade, under-performing the Tokyo stock market’s electrical machinery index, which rose 1.1 percent.

By Anupreeta Das
San Francisco, Reuters

Taiwan, Japan and Israel are just some of the emerging hotspots for innovation outside the United States, as venture capitalists continue to pour more dollars into global investments, a new survey said.

Nearly three out of every five of U.S. venture capitalists, or 57 percent, are now investing outside the country, compared with 46 percent last year, the 2008 Global Venture Capital Survey found.

The survey measured the opinions of nearly 400 venture capitalists from around the world, including 163 U.S.-based firms, and was conducted by Deloitte LLP and the National Venture Capital Association, a U.S. trade group.

Although the United States maintains its preeminent position as global leader in innovation, National Venture Capital Association President Mark Heesen said there will be more venture activity in those destinations ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the survey. “The secondary trends are more interesting because it shows the up-and-coming locations,” Heesen said Monday.

The United States held the top spot in each of the sectors measured — semiconductors, software, biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, and alternative, or clean, technology.

But Germany ranked second for innovation in alternative energy and medical devices. Fifteen percent of venture capitalists said Taiwan had the best semiconductor technology, after the United States. India ranked No. 2 for software innovation, followed by the UK, Israel and Germany.

“While the U.S. isn’t losing ground, the globalization of innovation is underway,” said Mark Jensen, national managing partner of Deloitte’s venture capital services.

International is hot

U.S. venture capitalists have begun pumping more money into start-ups in other countries; last year, they put in nearly US$9 billion, or one-fifth of all dollars they invested, into international investments.

About US$2.5 billion of this amount went to China and India, still two of the hottest emerging markets for venture dollars, compared to US$1.9 billion in 2006, according to data from Thomson Reuters and NVCA.

“Asian countries have advantages over the U.S. when it comes to technology,” said Dixon Doll, founder of DCM, an Asia-focused venture firm.

In addition to well-trained and “reasonably priced” engineers, countries like China and India “typically know and can figure out the relevant ways to build local services… optimized for the requirements of local users,” Doll said.

The combination of local talent and local markets has led tech giant IBM to focus more keenly on emerging economies, said Claudia Fan Munce, the managing director of IBM’s Venture Capital Group, in a recent interview.

International Business Machines Corp. does not invest in start-ups, but instead partners with traditional U.S. venture capital firms in their search for marketable technologies.

Fan Munce said her international travel has shot up in the past year because more and more venture capitalists are looking beyond U.S. borders for the next big idea.

She listed Canada, Peru, Vietnam, Russia and Ireland as new centers for technological innovation, in addition to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

“IBM follows the money,” she said. “We want to go (to emerging markets) when they have dealflow.”

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