On February 21, KDDI (finally) launched Qualcomm's BREW (binary
runtime for wireless) environment on a new Toshiba handset, the
A5304T. We've got a great interview coming up in the March 5 edition
of the WWJ Video newsmagazine with Qualcomm's BREW project manager, Ted Nozaki, but the interesting point here is that among the 21 BREW applications available for download via EZweb, several come from Korean providers. That has to be a first!
WWJ sr. contributing editor Michael Thuresson dropped me a note late
last week commenting on the growing Korea-Japan ties. He mentions that the Korean government has set up the "iPark Tokyo" IT-related venture support complex housing several Korean wireless application developers aiming to do business on Japan's wireless webs.
He adds that, "iPark Silicon Valley is interested in utilizing this
relationship to bring both Japanese and Korean content into the US
market." Mike cited one good example of this: Web Eng Korea, a
developer/aggregator. "They opened a North American office for
distribution in the US market, and have named themselves 'Tsunami.'
They're apparently actively looking for Japanese content to import as
well."
I also received feedback on my editor's comments accompanying last
week's WWJ Video Newsmagazine ("Smartphones Stir Up Japan's Mobile
Market" - a look at Nokia's Communicator now available in Japan) from
Gonzague-Alexandre Gay, a self-described former consultant for the
International Telecommunication Union.
He agreed that the PDA is not a "Japanese" device, and supplied some
reasons why that may be. "If you look around," he wrote, "you will see
that the keitai [business] in Japan is more a 'woman' business than in
Europe or the US. Young women (15-35 years old) upgrade their phone
almost every time that a new one is released; mobile phones with
built-in cameras were bought first by women and it is these clients
that Japanese carriers are targeting." I agreed that he was largely
correct.
Gonzague-Alexandre went on to state that, in Japan, the mobile
business is the business of 'fun' and that the phone is not
necessarily a productivity tool - in contrast to how European and US
device makers approach the problem. He agrees that in those markets,
this may be changing as younger male professionals increasingly adopt
mobile devices that are as 'fun' as they are useful - e.g. the P800
Ericsson or Nokia 7650. But he asserts that, in Japan, businessmen
don't travel much, mostly stay at the office, and so don't really need
smartphones. "His Keitai and maybe his laptop are good enough."
He finished with the observation that, "In Japan, women don't care if
they can have Outlook, Word, or Excel in their keitai." He says that
most of the smartphones in Europe are still "too big and business
oriented," like the Nokia Communicator, et al. "So, until a smartphone
brings 'fun' and pleasure in a small form factor designed for Japanese
women, we won't see such devices in Japan much at all."
I think he's made a couple of good points - and I certainly agree that
the keitai biz in Japan to date has been a consumer-targeted business
with female subscribers often leading the way. Maybe Nokia, Sony,
Casio, Sharp, et al would be wise to create a fashionably-colored
Communicator-like PDA with several applications tailored for the
young, female demographic?
Finally, the past couple of weeks saw two lavish events at trendy
Tokyo venues hosted by carriers NTT DoCoMo and J-Phone to fete their
content provider communities (so, yes, there was a lot of overlap in
the guest lists). One attendee at the J-Phone event, held at Zepp in
Odaiba, reported that it was a sweaty, raucous evening with content
community punters packed in six deep. "There was a lengthy line-up of
folks waiting to exchange meishi business cards," she said, adding
that a good time was had, evidently, by all.
NTT DoCoMo's event - held to mark the 4th anniversary of i-mode's
February, 1999, launch - was a little less raucous and more high-brow.
You can read a report on Joichi Ito's blog (link below); he mentions
that there were about 2,000 people present, all content providers, and
adds: "Most are making money. That's impressive. There were jugglers,
guys on stilts playing huge saxophones, lots and lots of food, plasma
displays all over the place, art, etc. Schmooze was in the air. The
NTT DoCoMo exec team has special business cards printed for the event
with special assistants following them around with a box of name cards
as they went around and greeted their guests. Reminds you of the good
old days."
-- Daniel Scuka
daniel@wirelesswatchjapan.com
i-mode 4th anniversary party/panel
joi.ito.com
imode_4th_anniversary_partypanel.html
++ Wireless Notes
---------------------------------------------------------------------
** Previewing Content - Japan: Sometimes, US: No
Last week, sr. contributing editor Michael Thuresson sent in a
user-level review of his new Sanyo handset that he uses on the Sprint
network. He commented: "As you scroll through a list of tones, you
cannot sample them before you buy them. Hard for people new to this
idea to get interested if they can't do that! Then they cost $1 each
and expire in 90 days." Afterwards, Carolynne Schloeder, executive
vice-president of Faith West Inc. - creator of the "music for i-mode"
(MFi) ring-tone file format used on i-mode, sent a comment stating
that Sprint doesn't allow ring tone previews from the phone because
"they're downloading through WAP, and that's currently not possible."
She added that streaming technology for WAP (which is also used by
KDDI in Japan for EZwewb) is in the works, but couldn't confirm when
it would launch or from whom. Carolynne also mentioned that Faith has
built one Java (J2ME) application to solve this problem, but the
company hasn't released it into the wild yet. It would be possible to
create a BREWlet that would also allow a streaminG preview of a
multimedia file.
In Japan, NTT DoCoMo allows some sound files to be previewed, namely
the audio files distributed via download-and-playback on the M-Stage
music service that runs on the 64-kbps PHS network (not i-mode).
Otherwise, it's rare for a ring-tone provider to offer previews in
Japan.
** New BREW Handset - Toshiba A5304T ;-(
A regular WWJ reader who requested anonymity (for obvious reasons)
send me a blast panning the new Toshiba BREW-enabled CDMA 1X handset:
Just thought you might be interested. I bought a A5304T with
BREW last week, and it is crap! Actually, the BREW part and
the camera are all right, and the phone design itself is nice;
but the user interface and display suck. The display is the
biggest out there but the pixels are really large. Resolution
is not that great; looks kind of like the display on a Palm. I
wouldn't have bought one if I had seen a working model
beforehand, but I figured that since Toshiba put out that
quarter VGA-resolution model on J-Phone, the display [on this
one] must be nice. Also, the icons stink and you can't
customize anything.
The BREW applications are nice, although I've only played with
a few. The GPS maps load fairly fast so that's good. The
camera and the photos are excellent though, and there are some
functions on this phone that I do like, but the interface is
awful. I already traded it in for an A5302CA, which is much
better.
Pictures, screenshots of display, review (Japanese) at:
k-tai.impress.co.jp
From:
Wireless Watch Japan Mail Magazine
Commentary on the Business of Wireless in Japan
Issue No. 91, Tokyo, Tuesday, March 4, 2003 |
