I thought this CDG report was pretty interesting. 2 main points - DDI increases EZWeb Customer base to 3 million.
Also, Hitachi introduced the first color browser for the CDMA market in Japan. (I find it strange that HIT does not have any info about their cell phones on their home page.) Here is the rest of the article.
Total Subscribers of DDI, DDI-Cellular Group, TU-KA Group and IDO’s Wireless Internet Access Service, ""EZweb,"" Exceeds Three Million Using Phone.Com's Up.Link Server
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. and TOKYO, Japan, August 17, 2000 -- Phone.com, Inc., a leading provider of mobile Internet software, applications and services, today announced that the total number of subscribers of DDI, DDI-Cellular Group, TU-KA Group and IDO's wireless Internet access services "EZweb" which use the Phone.com™ UP.Link™ Server has exceeded 3 million in Japan as of July 28. An increase of one million subscribers in less than two months represents the rapid rate of adoption of the WAP-based EZweb wireless service. In related news, Phone.com recently announced that Hitachi Ltd. will be the first to offer the Japanese market a CDMA phone that uses Phone.com's new color version of the UP.Browser® microbrowser v3.2 through DDI, DDI-Cellular Group and IDO.
EZweb is a wireless Internet access service that allows subscribers to access Internet-based content such as email, news, stock, weather, movies, concerts, travel, sports and other information from Phone.com UP.Browser-enabled mobile phones. In addition to sites that have been created by individuals and content providers that are not listed on the menu, DDI, DDI-Cellular Group, TU-KA Group and IDO are providing over 200 content sites for each service. The additional sites can be accessed by typing the URL directly into the phone, or found by using search engines.
The EZweb service was introduced in April 1999-allowing subscribers to access the Internet through their mobile phones. As of July 28, 2000, the number of subscribers has exceeded 3 million. Currently, there are 20 Phone.com UP.Browser-enabled commercially available mobile phone models for this service from manufacturers such as Casio, Kyocera, Sanyo, Sony, Denso, Toshiba, Hitachi and Matsushita (Panasonic). "We are extremely pleased to see that the number of DDI, DDI-Cellular Group, TU-KA Group and IDO's EZweb users has reached 3 million, adding 1 million subscribers within two months," said Kazuhiko Ishii, president of Phone.com Japan. "As the new mobile phones start to ship, including the models with the recently announced UP.Browser color browser, it is expected to further increase the number of subscribers. Showing our commitment to the Japanese market, we will add new features to our products that are highly demanded by the market." |
