Year: <span>2005</span>
Year: 2005

Year: 2005

Fixed-line Messaging: Uncommonly Useless?

Telstra said today they will launch text messaging for fixed-line phones, a service that has always struck us here at a WWJ as uncommonly useless. The fundamental characteristic of mobile messaging is that it’s mobile — and the sender can reasonably assume that the receiver will have their phone with them or will at least check their mobile mail within a few minutes or at most hours. A celly is personal, always on and always in your pocket. The asynchronicity between the sender and the receiver is actually a benefit: many mobile mail users choose to send a text message when a voice call might be too disturbing. It’s fine if the receiver reads it and responds within a few minutes or later that morning. (For the full article, access the WWJ Newsletter archives here.)

Home Phones Join Texting Revolution

Telstra today launched Australia’s first text message service for home telephones, giving more than 10 million households the chance to join the “texting” revolution. The launch of this text message service means home phone users with compatible services can now read and send text messages on their landlines using specially designed telephones in the same way they do with mobile phones.

Is it just us, or does anyone else think this is uncommonly useless? “We anticipate that having text messaging available on the home phone will trigger a new wave of text messaging popularity, particularly among mums, dads and grandparents.” WWJ thinks Telstra’s launch of i-mode was a much more positive move for consumers and shareholders alike.

ZigBee SIG Japan to Form mid-2005

Ten of Japan’s telecom hardware and communication LSI makers recently announced plans to establish the ZigBee SIG Japan (ZigBee SIG-J) in the summer of 2005. ZigBee SIG-J will be a non-profit organization aimed at promoting the use of the ZigBee short-distance wireless standard. Given Japan’s traditional strength in the design and manufacture of control systems, this could be a hint of big things to come.

IEC Broadband World Forum Asia

The Broadband World Forum Asia, which is officially sponsored by NTT, will be presented May 30-June 2 at the Pacifico Yokohama convention center. The International Engineering Consortium (IEC). IEC announced that Japanese companies like NEC, Fujitsu, Oki Electric, Alaxala and many other multinational corporations, such as Motorola, Siemens and Alcatel will attend. NTT Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Norio Wada is official conference chairperson.

NEC to Launch New Mobile Phones in Russia

NEC Corporation today announced its new step to expand global mobile business, the entry into mobile solution business in Russia. NEC revealed new mobile phones “e242” and “e101” to Russia. NEC also reveals its new branding strategy and slogan “Get Personal”, which is in line with NEC’s global corporate statement “Empowered by Innovation ( TM )”, to further expand its mobile business in Russia. Starting with these two new models with three color variation as one of the key products, NEC will pursue its new strategy to enter into the wider-range product market segment to appeal to various consumers in Russia. With the new and specific target market segmentation, NEC will further launch products answering to the requirements from every customer of each segment.

Mobile Intelligence from CEATEC Japan

Panasonic CEATEC TourIn today’s program, we speak with Yutaka Nakamae from Panasonic’s Corporate External Relations Group who met with us during last fall’s CEATEC consumer electronics show in Tokyo. While there’s plenty of eye candy, including Panny’s 900iV (released in mid-2004), some skin-able models to please those who can’t decide on their favorite color and the very cool GSM X700 (now on sale in Europe), the real intelligence relates to finding our who’s boss in the carrier/manufacturer relationship (Hint: Who owns the customer?). Today’s proggy is not only a fun one — showing some great cellys from the October CEATEC show — but it also reconfirms the reality of the relationship between cell-phone makers and cellular operators in Japan — in this case, Panasonic and DoCoMo.