i-Mode vs. O2 Active Portal
O2 has promised its new found love for the i-mode data platform won’t see it kill off its own portal, O2 Active, which is based on WAP. Grahame Riddell, O2’s head of mobile data marketing, said the network has no plans to kill off O2 Active. “We will continue to support O2 Active and enhance its capabilities going forward,” he said. However, i-mode will be sold as the ‘premium’ data service alongside SMS.
Nevertheless, O2 will be making sure its customers know that i-mode and WAP are not one and the same when the service launches. “We will try to educate users this is not like WAP,” he said. “We’ll target users who tried WAP [in the past] and found it lacking in a number of areas.” Continue