Arrived at Cloud Expo for its opening in Santa Clara, and pleasantly surprised to see JETRO on the exhibitor's program. This is the Japan External Trade Organization, a group that held a lot of sway in the 70s and 80s, when Americans thought Japan was going to take over the US economy.

Despite two economic "lost decades," Japan remains the world's third largest economy, and a far wealther nation than China, which superseded its overall economy a few years ago.

Japan has scored well in the research we've conducted at our Tau Institute over the past several months.Even though our algorithms tend to highlight developing nations rather than the highly developed places such as Japan, the country nonetheless ranks in the Top 20 among the 102 countries we've studied. It does perform in the middle of the pack amongst its closest peers, as its Internet speed and broadband access could be higher, and its very high cost of living works against it.

Cloud computing is being deployed in its financial sector, telcos, and increasingly in its transportation and manufacturing sectors, according to reports from colleagues. I'll see what I can find out from the JETRO reps. Ironically, it seems the United States would likely favor a stronger Japan these days; certainly the purchase of lots of US cloud technology and services could be a new bright spot for the industry.

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