The iPhone for DoCoMo Saga
DoCoMo still in iPhone talks, nice link bait via WSJ. KDDI Q2 ended 09.30 iP debuted 10.15.. here’s our take: http://bit.ly/vObhsz
The original WSJ article, which we won’t bother linking for as it’s locked behind an ‘evil’ walled-garden, was low brow link bait and jaded as ever. Not too mention a few factual nigglies within, such as claiming the iPhone helped KDDI numbers for Q2 even though they closed the books on Sept. 30th and started selling the device for the first time on Oct. 15th. God is in Details.. so, we’ll just note a couple quick points below.
Of course the usual fanboys were all over this, adding the so-called carrier ‘bloatware’ or ‘junkware’ taglines without much consideration on these two (should be obvious) facts. First, APPL already includes plenty of their own pre-installs, from Game Center to mega-Yahoo! ‘options’ and of course Ass – Siri. Second, DoCoMo is the buyer.. if they are expected to sign-off on a massive investment order for handsets, and sell downstream to their most valuable clients, they reasonably should (as usual with all other ODM’s deals they do) have some definite say about what goes onto the phones they purchase. Products that were mentioned, mail and payments etc., are hardly bloatware.. Japanese customers expect these functions on devices out of the box.
Clearly, these big dogs will come to terms – or not. It just strikes us as kind of ‘strange’ that certain folks would cheer Apple for sticking to their guns, allegedly to maintain customer brand experience, without understanding for a moment that is ‘exactly’ what DoCoMo is doing as well. The key point then = Who is the customer. From where we stand.. that would be the party who signs the contract and pays the bill.