3-D Graphic Capsule Engine Grabs Attention
Tokyo’s HI Corp. has developed a 3D-graphics rendering engine that was first deployed by J-Phone/Vodafone in 2001. The software allows a cell phone to display very cool 3-D images that can be rotated, spun around, and otherwise manipulated. Now NTT DoCoMo and KDDI have adopted HI’s technology, and the company is keen to boost 3D imaging into markets elsewhere. Unfortunately, Sony, Sharp, and other heavyweights have taken notice. In the cut-throat, mobile technology ocean, will HI Corp. end up as one more little fish eaten by the big fish? Today’s program features Tokyo’s HI Corp., a 10-year-old software house founded by a bunch of students that has created some very cool technology.
In Japan, phones and PDAs are viewed within the industry as separate vertical markets. DoCoMo and other carriers – who control the development and sale of cellular devices – have not seen fit to create a hybrid phone/PDA. Is it fear of loss of control over the subscriber billing relationship? Fear of allowing foreign makers – like Nokia – into the market? Is it the lack of Japanese third-party developers who have worked with overseas platforms (like Symbian)? Today’s program looks at a company helping to stir up a market that needs some stirring.
Last year, NTT DoCoMo exported the successful i-mode concept overseas. A crucial part of that concept is the much talked-about mobile content and service provider “ecosystem” and – sure enough – Japan’s ecosystem players are following Big D’s path. Today we focus on three smaller players that have found honest-to-goodness cash revenue in Europe due at least in part to their Japan antecedents. Ironically, none are working with any of the baby i-modes over there, showing you don’t need DoCoMo to do what DoCoMo does – anywhere.
Wherein WWJ staff line up a sexy, passion-red, brand-spanking new J-T08 from Toshiba- with a stunning LCD display – against a dowdy, dull-silver, two-year-old Panasonic P209iS in the handset grudge match of the year! We also toss a Sharp SH-52 camera phone into the ring… Japan’s pocket rockets have come a long way, baby, and it’s tough to beat the Tosh’s sleek lines, world-beating LCD screen, and silky smooth sound. Like their automaker brethren of a generation ago, does this lop-sided fight mean that Japan’s handset makers have mastered the art of ‘continuous improvement?’ We think so – and this program shows you why. 
Cees van den Heijkant, CEO of KPN Mobile The Netherlands, knows wireless Internet almost better than DoCoMo does. His company studied the model, stripped it down to basics, and last April birthed a bouncing baby i-mode that now claims over 200,000 subscribers (starting with only a single, less-than-spectacular handset, no less). Not bad for a process that took a year-and-a-half, required entirely new thinking on how to manage data services, and involved a lot of effort to, as he puts it, “understand how you’re going to bring the content to the customers.” Don’t miss this program!
Dr. Kamel Maamaria, head of telecoms practice at consultancy AT Kearney, says that lots of people – especially in Europe – have tried to brush off the i-mode model as ‘a Japanese thing.’ But he says that no other model has shown that operators can make money from content. “Vodafone launching V live! is one of the best things that ever happened to DoCoMo – because what Vodafone is doing validates the i-mode model,” he adds. Watch Part I of our in-depth report highlighting Gurus and Deep Thinkers from this month’s 3G Mobile World Forum.