Research In Motion (RIM) will soon be offering a Japanese-language version of its popular BlackBerry handheld. The announcement came as part of a press conference in Tokyo. During the press conference, the company’s President and Co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis, said a BlackBerry solution capable of supporting the entry of Japanese fonts is expected to be available by the first half of next year. NOTE: No Japanese language text input! See here and here for more details.
DoCoMo have just announced they will start marketing a BlackBerry handheld device and BlackBerry-enabled service on 26 September 2006. The BlackBerry 8707h, made by Research In Motion Limited (RIM), and DoCoMo’s BlackBerry Network Service – enabling RIM’s BlackBerry Enterprise Solution – will be targeted at corporate customers. The BlackBerry 8707h operates on both W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS networks and can be used overseas for voice and packet (data) communications. WWJ has been following this story; see our related posts here and here.
WWJ has spotted the first presence of NTT DoCoMo’s ‘DCMX’ mobile credit (card) service on the streets of Tokyo and, once again, the future has arrived. Lawrence Cosh-Ishii, WWJ’s director of digital media, en route to a central Tokyo video shoot a few days ago, spied the first street-level advert for retail goods payable via DCMX (image at right).
Predictably, the pitch came from Girl’s Walker, Xavel’s icon of community-centric, user-recommended mobile shopping, which earned the company Pharaonic riches long before dusty old ‘blogs’ were ever invented. Girl’s Walker is touting a special fall line of fashionable goods that can be paid for via “DoCoMo credit,” which takes the form of a real credit payment for adults, or the purchase cost is added to the monthly phone bill, for cash-flush, under-age teens. Note no reference to any sort of ‘card’ – the service is the phone, and credit ‘cards’ are oh-so-1970s.
DCMX is shaping up to be the main pillar in DoCoMo’s consumer financial services strategy that will lock in mobilers and secure massive revenues long after 3G – and the mere delivery of mobile digital content – has become a low-margin sideline that markets elsewhere still can’t comprehend. DCMX isn’t merely the the ‘Next Big Thing’ – it’s everything; and it’s going to make 3G itself redundant (WWJ subscribers log in for full viewpoint and details on the DCMX mobile credit service).
I’ve had some interesting discussions in the past ten days with folks in Japan, Europe and elsewhere on the topic of mobile email. The topic also came up at last Friday’s W2 Forum seminar on Japan and Korea (“Trends & Insights from Japan & Korea“), held in London and attended by a lively and interesting group of folks from publishers, content providers, media, analysts, ad agencies, tech vendors and others.
SoftBank has just issued a press release – together with HTC – indicating that High Tech Computer Corp. CEO Peter Chou and Vodafone KK President and Representative Executive Officer Masayoshi Son have signed a strategic collaboration agreement under which both parties will collaborate to develop and sell 3G PDA phones in Japan. According to the statement, products will be available as of late 2006.
JR has announced they will drop the previous requirement to have the company’s “View” credit card in order to take advantage of their Mobile Suica service as of 21 October. They have also indicated that by sometime in December this year, SoftBank Mobile customers with FeliCa-enabled handsets (no model types announced) will also finally be able to use JR’s m-commerce system.
