We think that the market heavyweight, NTT DoCoMo, gets a better payback by spreading Java far and wide (at a low marginal cost), while eschewing pricey gadgets and add-ons (or making the consumer pay for same when desired; we note that DoCoMo’s SH251i is selling for 5,000 yen more than J-Phone’s high-end Sharp Sha-mail handset).
There’s a whole donburi full of WLAN projects in the works right now, including efforts by NTT DoCoMo, NTT Communications, Yahoo BB, Speednet, and others. All are following the famous “hotspot” model, and are angling tie-ups with your Macdonalds, your Mos Burgers, and your coffee shops. But we found a new entrant with a contrarian approach. Forget all the relatively immobile burger eaters and coffee drinkers; MIS provides fat pipes to surfers who are actually walking down the street.
Neale contacted DoCoMo IR, who helped clarify where the 9 percent lives in DoCoMo accounts. In the English version of the Consolidated Financial Statements (8 May 2002), under “(2) Consolidated Statements of Income” (page 16), there’s a section titled, “Operating income from other businesses.” This includes the 9 percent (Aha!!), and amounted to 45,272 million yen in FY2002.
Takaharu Mita is just a regular guy with a DoCoMo 3G videophone — but like many early-adopters, he’s got no one with whom to hold video calls. In March, he posted his number on his “FOMA Diary” Web site and invited the world to call — anytime. Well, the world responded, and Mita-san has got a lot to say about videophones, Big D, and how society’s gonna change…
This week, we finish up our Killer Interview Series and find out how NTT DoCoMo is handling spam, a serious quality-of-service issue. Why don’t the other carriers have similar spam problems? Maybe they’re just not telling…
PLUS, We finally present you the results from our Survey taken in March.
The phone is still not an “IT sale” in Japan, but we talk to one mobile application developer that is trying to effect change — and is having some success.
Hear why KDDI 3G is a better bet than DoCoMo’s FOMA for enterprise apps.
