Viewpoint
Viewpoint

Viewpoint

DoCoMo Pulls the Plug on AOL

Chalk, cheese and lost opportunities: DoCoMo has ended its mystery-laden, Internet Bubble-popped tie up with AOL after deciding that it couldn’t make any money with them, and it’s flogging its entire barrow load of stock (its 42.3%) holding back to AOL at, SURPRIZE, a good deal less than the $100 million it was reported to have paid. So are minority shareholders Mitsui & Co. and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun Inc. In fact the Nikkei put it this way, we…”were exploring new services that would link personal computers and cellular phones over the Internet, but NTT DoCoMo has concluded that the venture is unlikely to become profitable.”

KDDI Joins FeliCa Bandwagon

The news is out that KDDI has decided to adopt Sony’s FeliCa, thus removing a major barrier to the contact less IC card’s promulgation outside of DoCoMo in Japan– and also bringing the technology into a major cdma carrier. For us at WWJ, this is the biggest news of the month! Last week we talked to Shusaku Maruko, Senior Manager of Sony’s FeliCa Business Center and got the lowdown on what FeliCa will be. Please wait for that program, and before that, we will post the only FeliCA i-mode service video available for you, our loyal subscribers, around in the world on or around December 17. Sorry to hype this, but you just can’t get our action anywhere else in the world and, Goddam, we are so happy!

IDC Doubtful on 2 Megapixel Camera Phone Rollout

Most of Japan’s next-generation cell phones are going to have 2 megapixel cameras next year, right? There is already a supply crunch developing for CMOS sensors, right? The global shipment of cellies is going to near 490 million units in 2004, right? And, finally, Japanese makers are gearing up for an assault on the world market via Vodafone, right? Probably not, don’t think so, well if you are very lucky and Vodafone central is a long way from Tokyo- there is something fishy about Vodafone talking up its love of Japanese handsets…these are the sorts of answers that you get if you talk to IDC Japan’s top wireless device analyst Michito (Mitch) Kimura, who has his own take on things. Recently, WWJ listened in on Kimura’s presentation about camera phone trends, followed up with an interview, and came back with the following snapshot.

Sony FeliCa Gets Near Field Boost

Sony announced today that the 13.56 MHz Near Field (NF) Communication technology that’s been under wraps with Royal Philips Electronics has got green lights from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) under the ISO/IEC IS 18092 standard. So now Philips and Sony cards can talk to each other, taking FeliCa –or what it’s now calling the NFC Chips — to cellies, cameras and… knowing Sony, just about anything it can to talk to the Europeans.

NEC's V601N: Japan's First TV CellPhone

NEC's V601N: Japan's First TV CellPhoneIt’s sassy, not clunky – but analog only. If this sounds like an ode to Japan’s first Tellycelly, please make your call swift: The TV will only run about an hour before the batteries poop, but the sales potential is, we think, killer. Vodafone’s V601N [.pdf] from NEC, on sale in December, follows Japan’s long consumer electronics tradition; namely, a cool, high-tech gadget that will sell at a premium by the truckload. Watch the tube, no pesky packet fees, grab screen shots and capture live video from broadcast programs, access TV guides via browser, and use it as a remote to control your karaoke machine. Watch our exclusive WWJ video clip of the ‘next big thing’ in action at Vodafone’s October press conference when the unit was introduced.

Japan Mobile Phone Internet Marketing (Part 2)

Last December, professor Philip Sidel of the International University of Japan served up some nasty lessons for believers in location-based marketing strategies (WWJ video here). Last week, Sidel and professor Glenn E. Mayhew presented their latest findings on mobile Internet (MobileNet) usage in Japan, and have come up with a new set of surprises, some nasty… and some nice. At a lecture at the American Chamber of Commerce Japan’s e-Business forum, the Sidel/ Mayhew team again cut swaths through several layers of hype and slashed up several misconceptions marketers might have. In our recent Viewpoint article, we noted how surprised some European consultants were about the lack of business apps in Japan’s MobileNet. Now prepare for some more; data gleaned in their most recent study shows that less than half of Japan’s MobileNet users plug in to keitai Internet for more for more than 5 minutes a day, and, perhaps, only a quarter of users are willing to pay for content and this is just the beginning.