The most demanding users of portable computers are, not surprisingly, those of us who use them for our jobs. Business people of all types typically carry laptop computers around the world, as do journalists and writers, to help them stay in touch.

When you're concentrating on trying to be productive, you want things easy, reliable, fast - and familiar. But, as foreign "road warriors" in Japan have discovered, you don't always get what you want.

by Thomas Caldwell

A small built-in or third-party external 1200 baud modem was enough to log onto a BBS, or to check your e-mail (if you even had e-mail back then). The T1000 was a simple little beast, but it got the job done - such as the job of mobile computing was in those days.

How things have changed. Today's portable computers are faster and more powerful, but then all computers are that. Today's laptops are also tougher, smaller, and more comfortable to use, have screens that are much easier to read, and can do a whole range of tasks that weren't even dreamed of when Nakasone was prime minister of Japan.

The evolution of these useful little machines has been like no other in the history of industrialization. Whereas desktop computers are still made up of fundamentally the same components that they were in the mid-1980s (steel box, motherboard with slots, keyboard, and CRT monitor), laptop computers have evolved into something else entirely. This has given birth to what should, in my opinion, be termed the "art of mobile computing."

But using a portable computer in an international environment poses all sorts of challenges. This is especially true in Japan, where the ways of doing things - from dealing with data to getting online - are so different.

Typing vs. writing
The one thing that has remained more or less consistent throughout the development of the laptop computer is the size of the keyboard. Although there are now some pocket-sized PCs with mini-keyboards that fit in the palm of your hand, most serious users still (and probably always will) need a keyboard that can be used in the conventional manner.

Research into keyboard size preferences has shown that American and European users are more concerned about the size and feel of a laptop's keyboard than are their Japanese colleagues. This is mostly due to the fact that typing skills are taught in Western schools; when someone enters the job market in London or New York, it is expected that typing (called "keyboarding" these days) is a skill that has already been learned.

Not so in Tokyo. Although Western alphabet and kana keyboard typing is taught, the Japanese culture still relies heavily on pen and paper for recording information. It is because of this cultural difference that the handheld "pad computer" has begun to catch on with Japan's ambitious business people.

Few Japanese ever learn to type as fast as their Western counterparts. (The Japanese-language computer keyboard - and there are several nonconforming varieties -is itself a recent invention.) The devices that have descended from the Apple Newton, so popular in Japan, have not yet hit it big in the US and other Western countries mostly because few people in those countries know proper penmanship.

Humans have to write in a specific, precise way for a computer read the input, and learning proper writing technique to be more "productive" can prove a frustrating and time-consuming process. This is where the rigid system of Japanese schools proves advantageous. Japanese students are taught from an early age how to handle a pen, and how to write kana and kanji in precise, calculated strokes, and in the proper stroke order. The result is that everyone writes the same way, which makes a computer's job of reading handwritten input a lot easier.

Of course, another attraction of the pad-type computer is the Japanese traditional "allergy" to anything big. It is also no surprise that there is a reluctance among Japanese to lug a "big, heavy" portable computer (of the A4 notebook variety) on the bus and subway. Size (or, rather, the lack of it) is a very sought-after quality in Japan. The smaller you can make something, the more likely it is that people will buy it.

Japanese keyboard laptops will still be around, as will English-language pad computers, but the input method of choice will differ depending on the language you are working in. Add a wireless modem connection to a pad computer that can read Japanese, and you have a very powerful tool - one that will become the portable PC of choice for most Japanese road warriors in the coming years.

One of the major objectives of mobile computing is to be able to keep in touch while on the road. Unfortunately, if you're a foreign traveler whose goal is to keep in touch with the rest of the world, there is trouble in portable PC paradise.

Cellular miscommunications
Laptop users have been able to communicate for data transfer using cellular phones for some time now; it is not a new technology. However, the cellular data abilities that mobile computer users in many developed countries currently enjoy are not to be had in Japan. There is no technological reason for this; the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of a company that is well known (and, by many, well hated): NTT.

Most of the world's telecommunications giants have already come to the conclusion that people with laptop computers have a tendency to travel, often to other countries. They have also noticed that people with cellular phones frequently move from place to place. But NTT, and Japan's Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT), are still scratching their collective heads over this fact. They can't seem to understand why the rest of the world doesn't fall into line behind Japan's own "standards."

The problem, and very near future scenario, is this: While NTT and its governmental patrons were off in a corner feeding their superiority complex, the rest of the planet came up with a global cellular roaming standard, called the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). Originally developed in Europe, GSM is now used in 109 countries. Today, more than 33 million people around the world use the GSM standard, and an estimated 150 million cellular customers will be using it by the year 2000.

GSM is basically a fully integrated network, one that covers all types of mobile communications. Users will very soon be able to travel to almost anywhere in the developed world and have cellular access to voice, fax, data, e-mail, Internet, and text messaging. A traveler can get on a plane in London with his cellular phone and laptop, for example, and fly to Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Sydney, Bombay, and Cairo without experiencing any communications problems at all.

Our traveler will be able to remain in constant contact (except while in the air - but that will change) and be reachable at the same number the entire time. And when he gets home to London, he will receive only one bill, from his local cellular service. No foreign exchange, no credit card, no language or computer connection problems, no mess. One less technological problem of daily life to worry about, and more time to concentrate on making money.

Here in Japan, however, things are very different. Sure, a cellular connection is possible anywhere within the country - provided, of course, you have an NTT cellular phone; the "competitors" don't cover the same amount of territory. NTT's much-touted 32K service, which connects portable computers through the popular Personal Handyphone System (PHS), is also terrific (if you are using a Japanese-language capable computer).

But foreign visitors to Japan are in for a rude awakening. For the harried businessman, keeping in touch with the rest of the world from Japan (and nearby South Korea, which also has its own proprietary cellular standard) can be an absolute nightmare. Your trusty GSM cellular phone simply won't work. Be prepared to check your e-mail from an expensive hotel phone, and to have your phone messages taken by hotel operators whose native language is not English. (And God help you if your home office staff only speaks Spanish!)

In Tokyo, there'll be no fax messages delivered directly to your laptop, such as you can get in New York or Jakarta; they'll have to go to the hotel fax machine, where anybody can read them. And you'll have to plan your schedule to be in your hotel room or local office for that phone call from HQ, instead of taking it on your cellular phone while on the shinkansen to Osaka. In short, wasted time and wasted money.

Japanese businessmen traveling overseas experience a similar problem; their Japanese laptop/cellular setup doesn't work either. Suddenly, they are a lot less competitive than they used to be. (This is especially true during international trade shows, where representatives from foreign companies are able to go from booth to booth, meeting to meeting, and deal to deal without skipping a beat. All the information they need is there at their fingertips via cellular connection, while the guys from Tokyo have to fumble around at a pay phone or dash back to their hotel room to wait for a fax.)

GSM is not the future; it is here (at least in the rest of the world) now. By mid-1998, it will be possible for the GSM cellular-equipped business traveler to always be in touch - except from Japan.

So why doesn't NTT and the Japanese government get on the GSM bandwagon? One of the Seven Deadly Sins is pride, and NTT (which wields enormous power in Japan's telecom industry) feels that its technology is the best in the world - period - and stubbornly insists on going its own way. But even if this is true (which is debatable), it isn't relevant. Users - at least, business users who travel with a laptop computer and cellular phone - don't really care how the technology they are using functions, or whether it is better than another. All that matters for the user is that it gets the job done - which Japan's proprietary system doesn't.

Worldwide mobile computing is not just a gimmick, as some in Japan seem to think. It is the way that many businesses are currently operating. By not signing on to the GSM standard, Japan's viability as an international business center is seriously threatened.

Olympic-sized problems?
The effects of the GSM fiasco will become painfully obvious to Japan when the world comes to Nagano next year for the Winter Olympics. Reporters representing prominent news organizations from around the globe will descend on Nagano, and virtually all of them will be carrying their portable computers and cellular phones.

Once a news correspondent gets used to the GSM standard, there is no turning back. And since many of the nations represented in Nagano will be from Europe, home of GSM communications, their sports journalists will suddenly find themselves dependent on land lines and unfamiliar cellular setups provided by NTT.

Given that the geographical area of the Olympics will consist of much of Nagano Prefecture, comprehensive coverage of the events will be especially difficult. Business executives, many of them representing the sponsors who are pouring millions of any currency you can name into the Games, will also be frustrated to find that the "one number, all services" they have gotten used to will not be working in Japan.

News coverage is the driving force behind the Olympics. Without it, there would be no advertising, no sponsorships, no money - and no Games. Since GSM will be well established by the time the world comes to Nagano, NTT will find itself facing down the rest of the human race.

That should prove an interesting, if predictable, confrontation. It would be a pity if Japan gets a worldwide black eye over something as silly, but significant, as laptop computers and cellular phones.

NTT's foolishness, and that of the MPT bureaucrats, will have far reaching consequences. The world is growing tired with Japan as a business partner that insists on being "unique." Although Japanese manufacturing is still among the best in the world in terms of quality, the high yen and rising labor costs have leveled the playing field with other Pacific Rim nations, and Japan is losing its hard-gained advantage. If NTT and the MPT wake up and face reality before it is too late, Japan will once again find itself playing "catch-up" with the US and Europe. And if not....

Global electronic mail exchange The first commercial e-mail systems that came into being in the 1980s were single-company types that offered connection nodes all over the world. While this made checking your messages on the road a breeze, if your customer or friend was using a different system, you were stuck. With the commercialization of the Internet, there is no longer any problem communicating with someone using another provider or e-mail system. The flip side, though, has been that accessing your e-mail on the road could be a problem. Unless you were using an enormous ISP (Internet service provider) that could offer its own nodes around the world, checking your e-mail away from home often required a long-distance phone call. Fortunately, those days are coming to an end. There are dozens of Internet Exchange companies popping up - worldwide cooperatives that enable the customers of member ISPs to log in via a local connection node to check their e-mail and news, or even surf the Web. There are many, but the two biggest Internet Exchange firms at this time are GRIC and iPass, both of which are based in the US but have member ISPs in Japan. The connections offered by these services already cover most of the major population centers of the world, and more nodes and members are being added almost daily. While there is a surcharge for using the service (currently this runs about ¥20 to ¥60 in Japan, depending on your ISP), this is still cheaper, and a lot more convenient, than having to make a long-distance call. There will doubtlessly be a shakeout in the Internet Exchange business, just like the one already going on in the Internet provider business, but in the end the customers will be the winners.

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