People used to say that a nation needs infrastructure for its economy to grow. But today, according to a former head of a Canadian telecommunications equipment company, it is "info-structure" that plays a key role in a country's economic development.
"Those countries which are leading the world in economic development are the ones that have strong information networks. ... It is extraordinarily important to all countries, including Japan," Edmund Fitzgerald, former chairman and CEO of Northern Telecom Ltd. (Nortel), said in an interview with The Japan Times.
Nortel is one of the few foreign companies that succeeded in penetrating Japan's telecommunications market in the 1980s. The company supplies telecommunications products and services, and its major rivals are companies such as Motorola Inc. and Lucent Technologies Inc.