U.S Market
U.S Market

U.S Market

CTIA: Ready for Japan?

The annual CTIA event is underway – like spring break for telco geeks – this week in Orlando and the PR is flowing. While there is predictable hype surrounding mobile tv and m-commerce, it’s satisfying to see that indeed the industry over-seas is beginning to embrace the functions and services we have seen developed and deployed here in Japan over the last few years. Now of the course the trick is, after the chatter, what happens next. As they say “the devil’s in the details” so time will tell, but it really does seem that things are warming up under the Florida sun!

DoCoMo's New U.S. Advisory Board

DoCoMo announced today that it will launch a fourth U.S. Advisory Board, which will hold its first meeting in the United States on April 11, 2007. The board will be chaired by former United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Michael K. Powell, currently chairman of the MK Powell Group and senior advisor of Providence Equity Capital, and will include Dr. C. Fred Bergsten, founder and director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who served as chairperson on two previous boards.

Is America Ready for a Virtual Mobile?

American Venture magazine interviewed Scott Driggers, CEO and Co-Founder of Gemini Mobile Technologies, about whether the American market is ready to explore a virtual world on their cell phone. Gemini is preparing to launch its 3D mobile software platform, eXplo, in the UK or the U.S. Currently, eXplo is driving Softbank Mobile’s 3D virtual world, S! Town, in Japan, which has added 100,000 subscribers since launching in November of 2006. In S! Town, subscribers design and dress their avatar and room, using the virtual world’s currency for purchases.

Namco and KDDI Partner for Mobile Games

Namco Networks has announced an exclusive partnership with KDDI to represent the carriers large catalog of mobile games from Japanese publishers and developers in North American. Running on Qualcomms BREW technology, KDDI has a mobile games catalog which includes a wide range of puzzle, action and strategy games. Financial details of the venture were not included with the statement.

Major Shake-up at Faith

Several sources are reporting that Intel Capital and Yoshimoto Kogyo have bought a small stake in Faith Inc.. Last week Faith’s U.S. arm Moderati was sold to Bellrock Media, as pointed out in the most recent Mobile Music Watch newsletter; “Following its board meeting last Friday, Faith Inc. announced that co-founder and COO Makoto Nakanishi will resign from the company and acquire 100% of its struggling US subsidiary Faith Communications.”. According to their statement, the US subsidiary is losing money and plagued with problems, including a postponed trial launch of its Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) service and heavy capital requirements.

Verizon Pushing Casio G'zOne Handset

As we mentioned when Casio’s G’zOne handset [.jpg image] launched here in May 2005 “This could be a design winner should it land on US shores in time for the Christmas shopping rush”. While it took a bit much longer, we just noticed they have rolled-out an amusing interactive flash website, touting the rugged nature of what should be a great Japanese handset for the U.S market.