TWIA #29: This Week in Japan

For this week, the TWIA crew is joined by Serkan Toto, a special guest from Japan, who is the only Asia correspondent for TechCrunch. We diced and sliced through the news happening in Japan: (a) DeNA’s reported profits and its competition with Gree, (b) Google is now booted out of mobile search by NTT-Docomo, the largest telco in Japan with them adopting Goo, (c) the new mobile apps platform set up by various Japan handset vendors including NTT-Docomo, and finally, we have a Singapore start-up named TenCube making headway in China. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs.

• DeNA Reports USD100M On Quarterly Profit and focus on social apps business: We examine the landscape of mobile social gaming, and how the fight is now intensified between DeNA and Gree with a lawsuit over a fishing game on Japanese handsets.
• Google Losing Default Mobile Search Engine Position On Docomo i-mode Portal, A Gate To Half Of Japanese Mobile Web: Google is once again being snubbed and where do they go from here after NTT-Docomo, the largest telco dissed them for another mobile search engine. However, it did not help with Goo crashing on the first day when they realized that they could not handle the load.
• Japan’s next generation mobile application platform: NTT-Docomo is leading the way with Renesas Electronics, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic Mobile Communications and Sharp to create a new mobile applications platform. We wonder whether they are planning to take the Apple iPhone head-on given their recent success in the Japanese market. We surprise you by where Apple might get the idea of the mobile apps store.
• TenCube, SG based start-up and winner of Android Developer Challenge 2 last year got an award in China. : So, where is TenCube going after traversing from India to China?
• Don’t miss out these major events too: Wordcamp MY, PyCon APAC 2010 and definitely, Echelon 2010.