Events
Events

Events

Mobile World Congress 2010 Report

Despite an unusual chill in the air, it was snowing when we landed on Saturday night, the annual Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is wrapping up here today with plenty of hot news bits. The 2010 event will most likely be remembered for the “Arrival of Android” and the keynote from Eric Schmidt was a refreshing shift from the usual ‘dumb pipe’ belly button gazing offered by the operators. Watch the full presentation, including a few interesting demos followed by Q&A, via YouTube.

Of course the entire cycle towards LTE networks was key topic on the show floor, the Samsung Wave was certainly turning heads, Intel and Nokia introduced MeeGo and plenty of worthy press going around the debut of Windows 7 series – Video Here. Props to Microsoft for making what appears to be a quantum leap with WiMo, better late than never, and too their PR folks for freezing the clock on Plaza Catalunya Hotel at 7 for the whole week.. interesting times ahead to be sure!

i-mode TidBits @Mobidec 2009

The annual Mobidec gathering was on here yesterday and the Jpn web is full of related post event reports. Perhaps one of the most interesting presentations came from Yuka Harada, DoCoMo consumer service division contents director, who shared some real – current – details. For starters, their current flat-rate subscriber ratio is closing in on 1/2 the total base at 21.5M, with 80-90% in the teens to 20’s age bracket. Also noted usage activity on iMenu in October was running about 20M unique page views per day and that their pay contents information fees, with music leading the way, hit about $250M last month.

SoftBank Fall 2009 Handset Series

On the same afternoon that DoCoMo rolled their latest offering of 19 new models, across town SoftBank Mobile was also pitching their upcoming series of devices. Not only on the same day and time but SBM also introduced 19 new handsets for their winter 2009/10 lineup with 7 units coming from Sharp, 5 by Panasonic, 3 NEC’s, 2 Samsung and 1 by Toshiba. While Wi-Fi is certainly their keyword, taking advantage of the existing Yahoo BB network, the mystery Android handset marked for arrival in spring 2010 is getting all the buzz. Described only as a high spec. unit running a “Snapdragon” 1Ghz CPU with a 3.7-inch organic EL liquid crystal display – sounds like this Toshiba – and various new related services. Check-out the fancy Flash Gallery or watch the full 1:40 minute video presentation with English voice-over for all the details.

Ad:Tech Tokyo Conference 2009

We attended the inaugural Ad:Tech Tokyo conference yesterday at the Prince Park Tokyo hotel to wander the trade floor and take in a few presentations. The “Effective Mobile Marketing Tools & Case Studies” panel was a clearly a must attend, and the room was packed. Moderated by Akihiko Tokuhisa, Director and CTO of the Digital Advertising Consortium, with presentations by Shigeki Tanaka, GM of Corp. Strategy at FeliCa Networks, Alvin Foo VP for APAC at Velti, John Largerling, VP and GM for AdMob Japan and our very own colleague Kei Shimada CEO at Infinita. Some very interesting slides during that session which was closed with very wise observations by Tokuhisa-san, impressive!

Japan Telecom at ITU World 2009

ITU World 2009 runs again this year, Oct. 5 – 9 in Geneva, with 18 Japanese Telecom leaders on-hand to discuss ICTs for economic growth. With its focus on development opportunities, the event brings together corporate social responsibility and displays cases of best practices. As always it looks to be a fantastic high-level gathering and we hope to be there!

Wireless Japan 2009 Reports

The crew at RBB Today did a fantastic job [in Japanese] covering the annual Wireless Japan conference and exhibition at the Big Sight convention hall, starting with this video demo of augmented reality by DoCoMo R&D labs. We were at the show this year, running the summer edition of Mobile Monday Tokyo event there on the 24th, and must say while there was still several interesting products on display the current economic situation certainly dampened the usual buzz.