Year: <span>2006</span>
Year: 2006

Year: 2006

BREW Developer Award Winners Announced

QUALCOMM has announced the winners of the BREW 2006 Developer Awards, a global awards program that recognizes and promotes the best BREW applications created by wireless publishers and developers. The BREW 2006 Developer Awards — sponsored for the second year in a row by Motorola — recognizes wireless publishers and developers who are creating best-in-class BREW applications and services that are propelling wireless data to the next level. Japanese entries were awarded top honor in 3 of the 9 catagories.

NTT DoCoMo finally needs Microsoft

One of WWJ’s long-time favorite mobile & tech media sites, The Register.co.uk, posted an item last week that stopped us short: “DoCoMo deal opens i-Mode world to Windows Media.”

The point that caught us was right in the opening graf (see if it grabs you too):

“Japanese giant NTT DoCoMo, a long standing Microsoft partner in the world of mobile entertainment, is to port Windows Media DRM (digital rights management) to its 3G handsets, allowing for content to be moved between phones and PCs, and bypassing the Open Mobile Alliance DRM.”

Like us, you probably didn’t need the red ink to highlight this article’s boggling assertion that NTT DoCoMo is a “long standing” Microsoft partner; while the two tech giants may not exactly hate each other, there’s been been little love lost as Microsoft has failed at every step of i-mode’s growth to establish any significant…

eMobile Completes Additional Equity Financing

eMobile, a subsidiary of eAccess Ltd., announced today it has successfully completed another round of equity financing with an additional 27.3 billion yen new capital. Following this transaction, the total paid-in capital (capital shares and capital reserve) of eMobile will reach 143.2 billion yen (capital shares: 71.75 billion yen), and eAccess’ ownership in eMobile will be 46.2%. Together with the recent announcement of the project finance transaction of 220 billion yen, eMobile has secured a combined equity and debt capital of over 360 billion yen. The total capital raised should fully satisfy the funding requirement of eMobile’s business plan, according to a company statement released today.

DoCoMo Searching for Search Partner

NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to ally with an online search engine this year to keep pace with expected handset functions by rivals KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp. “Mobile phones are becoming much closer to personal computers,” said Chief Executive Masao Nakamura during an interview in Tokyo. “We definitely need a search engine.” He declined to name the search engine the company may ally with. Original Source

It goes without saying that since KDDI just announced their tie-up with Google and with SoftBank owning Yahoo! there are few alt. choices left. The betting has already started on whether it will be Ask or Excite.. will be interesting.

DoCoMo Making Moves in Hong Kong

Hutchison Telecommunications said it has formed a strategic partnership with NTT DoCoMo of Japan. An industry source familiar with the matter said the two companies are likely to launch mobile applications related to Hutchison Telecom’s 3G mobile platform in Hong Kong. A spokeswoman of Hutchison declined to give further details, but said the two companies will hold a press briefing on the partnership Thursday.

Web Update 1 June: It’s Official>>

Vodafone K.K. Financial Results for Fiscal 2005

Vodafone K.K. has just announced its results for fiscal 2005 (the year ended at 31 March 2006). Positive net customer additions of 169,200 were recorded in the period due to an expanded lineup of handsets well-suited to the Japanese market, improved network coverage, and the launch of attractive price plans. Net customer additions in the period represented an increase of 79,900 compared to 89,300 in the previous fiscal year and achievement of the turnaround plan announced at the beginning of the period. Consolidated operating revenues declined slightly to 1,467.6 billion yen and consolidated ordinary income declined by 51.5% to 74.4 billion yen. Consolidated net profit was 49.5 billion due to an extraordinary profit of 20.0 billion yen.