<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">I've been asked to respond to a panel at our business school. It's about the content business, and one of the panelists is from METI. In part of his presentation it seems he'll point to TIFCOM as a great success (based mostly on the numbers : <DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; text-decoration: underline;"><B>Outline of Fiscal 2004</B></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B> </B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B>Location: Roppongi Hills</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B>No. of Exhibitors: 86 companies<BR></B></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B> (27 of which were Asian: 10 Korean, 10 Chinese, 5 Hong Kong, 1 Thai, and 1 Indian)</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B>No. of Visitors: 4,537</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B>No. of Business Talks: 1,110</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; text-decoration: underline;"><B>Outline of Fiscal 2005</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B>Location: Roppongi Hills</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B>No. of Exhibitors: 131<BR></B></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B> (53 of which are Asian: 13 Korean, 6 Chinese, 8 Hong Kong, 8 Taiwanese, 4 Thai, 1 Indian, 3 Indonesian, and 10 Malaysian)</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial Narrow" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><B>No. of Visitors: 8,176</B></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>My impression from the trades is that this has been a great failure. Any comments from people in the know? Mark?!?!?</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Markus</DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>