Mitchell Kertzman was flying to San Jose, Calif., when he pulled out a Fujitsu Loox-T, the smallest laptop with a built-in DVD drive that his seatmate, Marc Benioff, had ever seen.
Soon, Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce.com, was ordering his own sub-notebook from a little-known online retailer that provides English-language software and tech support for computers and gadgets from Japan.
"We are both pretty fanatical about minimizing the travel weight of the electronics we carry," said Kertzman, CEO of Liberate Technologies. "The stuff you can get from Japan frequently hasn't been seen in the U.S., and it's smaller and cooler than what you see here."
Even in an economic downturn, a growing niche market is catering to tech junkies who want to own the latest gadgets, be the lightest traveler and impress other technology buffs with cutting-edge gear that's hard to find.
"The reality is there's a tremendous amount of technology that's amazing that Silicon Valley does not have," says Benioff. "We get lost in our little minds thinking we're the greatest and coolest at technology, but that's not so."
So who's selling this stuff? There are online niche retailers such as Dynamism.com and Japan-Direct.com, and specialty stores such as Los Angeles-based User's Side, which targets Japanese consumers living in the United States and early-adopter techies.
There's Mercantile of Osaka (www.mcljapan.com), which sells hard-to-get Japanese laptops with English-language software to U.S. distributors. One is a combination art gallery-tech store run by Japanese expatriates in New York's East Village.
Billed as an "idea laboratory," TKNY (www.tkny.com) sells international high-tech gadgets, including a computer mouse-like device that turns any flat surface into a speaker. Its only-in-Japan products include a fold-up electric bicycle and an ultra-thin Sharp Mebius laptop with a retractable keyboard, which they will outfit with an English-language operating system.
"When people say it's too early," says TKNY co-owner Kiho Shin, "I can't wait."
Sue Johnson, a documentary new-media producer who lives in the neighborhood, says TKNY is an island of unique items in an ocean of mass merchandise available everywhere.
"Everything is so global these days," she said. "Nothing's exciting and new anymore and you can get anything here, except there's all this stuff we don't know about."
Douglas Krone, CEO of privately held Dynamism.com, now makes six trips a year to Japan instead of two to cope with increased demand and shorter product cycles. Krone has expanded his warehouse space and though he won't reveal his revenues, he says sales have grown 100 percent every year since he started the company in Chicago in 1997.
"Somebody buys a notebook from us and they go into a board of directors meeting and the next day three other people in that meeting call us up to buy that same notebook," said Krone, who jettisons models after they are introduced in the United States, like the Loox-T.
"For our customers, being on the cutting edge is the status symbol of the high-tech community. Our products are harder to attain and they have design or function superiority."
Among the company's latest offerings is the 1.8-pound Sony Vaio U1, a 7.3-inch-by-5.5-inch notebook computer with Windows XP that sells for $1,899, about 25 percent more than it would cost in Japan because Dynamism provides English-language software, a one-year warranty and tech support.
"If you want the hottest, hippest, smallest, lightest laptop that's the most niche, you should talk to Douglas," said Benioff, who bought a second Panasonic Let's Note notebook because the first didn't have built-in wireless capability. "Douglas' computers are very high-end; they're extreme technology."
User's Side (www.usersside.com) opened stores in San Jose and Manhattan during the past year. It sells computer mice that are only 2 inches long, washing machines with a standard feature that automatically senses how dirty your clothes are, and sleek laptops otherwise unavailable in the United States.
'The cool factor'
"People like to have the latest product for several reasons. First is to get the longest useful life from the product. But more importantly, people like to show off," said Randy Sparks, a spokesman for Osaka-based Japan-Direct (www.japan- direct.com), a 4-year-old company that sells an increasing amount of Japanese high-tech gear around the world. "They like the cool factor, the wow they can get from showing off something to their friends and family."
Not everything cool and small is from Japan of course.
Shin, of TKNY, can't wait for a palm-sized wireless computer that weighs less than 9 ounces, comes with a 4-inch screen and can become a desktop or notebook PC. The OQO Ultra-Personal Computer, made by OQO Corp., (and members of the team that developed the Apple Titanium Powerbook), is expected to be released early next year (www.oqo.com).
Americans catch on
But Japan has been a trend-setter in computer gear, in part for cultural reasons, said Leon Schiffman, professor of marketing and e-commerce at St. John's University in New York.
"There is a cultural difference where Japanese favor small, compact sizes and elegant design way more than Americans do, but there's a portion of the American market who share that desire," Schiffman said.
"These people may be architects, designers, technology buffs who see the virtue or the parsimony or the elegance of such design. It's lost on everybody else," he said. "But there's so many people like that flying below the radar that a niche marketer like Dynamism can do well. I think Americans are becoming more sophisticated to those variances."
1. Spy Z is billed as the world's smallest still camera. Price: $139
2. Casio digital wristwatch with camera display. Price: $354
3. Pocket-sized video-audio player from Sharp. Price: $459
4. Sony's Vaio GT3/K is a combination notebook computer and digital video camera. Price: $2,449
5. This Ericsson T66 cellular phone is one of the smallest on the market. Price: $299
6. Price: $2,349 The slimtop W102 is a wide-screen concept computer from Sony. - - KNIGHT RIDDER/ TRIBUNE