Two losing teams in mobile telecommunications entered into loose talks in the summer of 2000 to join forces - for Ericsson to cut its dreadful losses and for Sony to re-enter the global arena in mobile handsets. Serious discussions followed by the end of the year, although real planning for...

This paper describes the abundance of semiconductor consortia that have come into existence in Japan since the mid-1990s. They clearly reflect the ambition of the government - through its reorganized ministry METI and company initiatives - to regain some of the industrial and technological...