Mr. Masayasu Uno (President)

Here, we introduce another company actively engaged in PHS development, following the interview of the company "Inventec (Nanjing, China)", reported in the PHS MoU Newsletter No.57.

Visited Company:	Honda Electron Co., Ltd. (Honda Electron) (The company name will be changed to NetIndex Inc. effective on October 1, 2005)
Date of Interview:	August 4 (Thu.), 2005
Interviewee:	Mr. Masayasu Uno (President)

Q. Please let us know of your company profile.

• By this April, 22 years have passed, since Honda Electron was given birth to as a subsidiary of Honda Tsushin Kogyo Co., Ltd. in 1983. We, now, design and manufacture telecom-and-network equipments, under our own engineering and manufacturing which is located in Hanamaki City of Iwate prefecture, Japan.


• About our shareholders
  Last June, Index Corporation, which is phenomenally growing by focusing on content business to deliver them over mobile and internet, took majority shares of our equity. Taking advantage of the affiliation with Index group, we are aiming to achieve any synergy between content delivery business by Index and our network platform business, which underlies for content delivery over network.


• Our mission
  As our corporate vision, we will become a pioneer of mobile and wireless communication and of digital home network, by offering our own unique and evolutionary products.

Q. What are your company features and the differences from other companies?

The company's heritage and intrinsic value is seen in keeping venture sprit for engineering which enabled us to first launch PHS data card in PCMCIA format. The product successfully attracted mobile PC net-workers, right after launch, under "Air Edge" brand sold by Willcom. Then, the product was adopted by another PHS data services under MVNO, like "b-mobile".

Furthermore, in few weeks, we are under way to launch a quite sensational module,-a general-purpose multi-function PHS communication module-, which allows to transmits data as well as voice. With the module, which was packaged as SIM, we are looking an opportunity to expand our business domain to voice area. Its development was searched by other firms in Japan, but only did Honda Electron engineer to complete the project, thanks to our risk taking engineering team.

Q. What are your rival companies and business strategies to them ?

Our immediate rivalry is considered among PHS data card Manufacturers, such as SII (Seiko Instruments Inc.), NEC and Fujitsu. Beyond data card, logically, all of mobile phone manufacturers might be seen as competitors, if voice business is taken into consideration. But we do not intend to compete in the same ground as those mobile phone manufacturers do. Hence, practically they are not seen as our competitors but as our customers, if our technologies are regarded as supplementary to them.

We believe that our core competency resides on our experience and resources for based band technology, which has been accumulated along with evolution of data communication technology since an era of analogue modem.

Q. What is your company policy?

Among all things, our top priority is to serve best to our customers. The top of our customer is WLLCOM. Such strong relationship with WILLCOM is attributed to our growth and to our technical challenge. Our appreciation to WILLCOM is beyond expression ...

The second most important policy is to develop and good and effective supply chain among various suppliers and vendors and then to manage them over time. Nowadays no company can design and build any new product from scratch to completion by their own. Thus, the success of product development is multiplied by well-being of relationship with those suppliers and vendors.

Other company policy which is believed to lead our success in future is;


1. To have a flexible (and effective) idea for development.
2. To retain a leading edge in technology.
3. To have a foresight to predict market evolution.
4. Not to be afraid to take a risk if well observed and reserached.

Q. Please let us know of your stock of knowledge, attitude to the business and world view.

It passed five months since I assumed the president of Honda Electron. In my late twenties, I took certified public accountant (CPA) license and then, served at an auditing firm, A few years after working as an auditor, I wanted to become a businessman engaged in global business. To pursue my dream, I left the accounting firm and went to the US in order to obtain a degree for MBA. After graduated from MIT Sloan School, I started-up a business to sell data communication products, while importing from the US or Taiwan, under the private brand. Then, the business unit was acquired by a US company as a Japan subsidiary. Since then, I have worked for several US companies as President of Japan operation over 8 years. With my experience in IT industry summing to 15 years, I could develop profession and knowledge in the industry. This my experience was quite useful at Honda Electron.

Q. What is your company's social contribution policy (vision) ?

If we contribute to make every-day life of people better and comfortable through our technology and products, then, it will be our utmost satisfaction as our social contribution.

Q. Mr. Aida, how do you feel about Mr. Uno as the president (leader) ?

I think that Mr. Uno is a man with very broad outlook. Further, he seems to be managing the company quite efficiently, so I believe that, generally speaking, employees much trust in his management.

Q. How many engineers do you have ?

We have nearly 50 engineers in software, hardware, modem and wireless field in total within company. Also, we are outsourcing more than 10 engineers all the time, depending on stage of development phase or on better allocation of our resource.

Q. What is your view of the domestic/international division of work and outsourcing ?

In order to establish a capable and functional outsourcing business model, clarification and objectives must be set by company management. Some engineering skills had been better to be accumulated within the company, others may be rather contrary to those.

It is our policy to treat our all types of employees equally whichever they are regular, contracted or subcontracted. In other words, an ideal working model inside is to create office environment, where people communicate openly with motivation and morale, because I believe that Performance and product are reflection of the environment.

Q. What is the reason why you've decided to develop and sell the PHS and what is your present main product and product lineups ?

According to ex-executives in Honda, the company have had engaged in commercialization of PHS network from early stage, offering ISDN testing bed to DDI Pocket. Such long relationship attributed us to develop packet data communication card, "G10" three years ago. However, it was quite huge challenge in engineering and in finance.

The success of development created mindshare to our engineers that "burden can be overcome".

Q. What are your customer companies ?

Above all, WILLCOM is our main customer. We also keep good relationship with MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators), such as Japan Communications Inc. (JCI), Fujitsu, Kyocera etc. as well.

Q. What products are expected to be developed by your company 3, 5 and 10 years from now ?

Drastic destruction and creation will be made during the next 3 years in the telecommunication world. Within that period, many new evolutionally communication system and portal will be developed and procured. As for PHS packet communications, data speed will also reach 1 Mbps in just matter of time.

As offered in the US by SBC, "Triple Play(Voice, Data, Video)" might be symbolizing the near future of telecommunication.

5 and 10 years from now, the theme and conditions of the telecommunication will possibly be changed because an optical fiber will have rapidly spread by then. Those will entirely be not an extension of the present telecommunication image such as the ubiquitous communications (for example, like a sacred lot at the shrine festival, no one can tell the future).

We are hoping to make our company to be able to give something (contents) to the future network business people.

Q. Do you think that the 3G and the PHS can coexist (in Japan, China and others) ?

The PHS can surely survive still in the 3G market.

Q. What do you think the present problems and the future view of the PHS ?

I think that single organization or company may be difficult to survive in the present telecommunication world. Now is the time to co-operate with suitable business partners (organizations, companies) who have something different from our company.

Further, it would be quite important that how powerful and excellent the business partners to co-operate with are. So that both ability of partner selection and being selected by partner are necessary.

For such purpose, the followings would be necessary.



1. To secure the excellent human resources.
2. To appeal to the powerful and excellent business partners (organizations, companies) in order for us to be selected by them.
3. We have decided to change our company name this time. We think that we should try to create our new brand image and enhance such brand awareness.

It's already passed five months since Mr. Uno assumed the president of Honda Electron and your head seems to be filled with the telecommunication related matters only. We would sincerely hope you take care of yourself and play an active role.