Fujitsu
Fujitsu

Fujitsu

Mobile Applications For Enterprise Users Missing in Japan

In September, a group of IT professionals visited Japan to roll up their sleeves and find out who are pushing what enterprise applications here. With FeliCa debuting in trial form a few weeks from now, we were interested in hearing their views about Japan’s ready-built business apps. infrastructure. You may be surprised by their findings. Independent consultant (and WWJ subscriber) Donal O’Shea was part of the group that included representatives of a major French airline, an Australian steel company and a UK-based package delivery company, together with Douglas Neal and Piet Opperman of CSC Research Services and Sebastien Bacholet of Cigref. They met with Qualcomm, HP, IBM, NTT DoCoMo, Alcatel/Fujitsu, Telecom France, Nissan, and Hitachi, and toured the Yokohama Reasearch Park. Wow, Big Big Itinerary… In a nutshell, concludes O’Shea, “carriers have never understood the enterprise…”

Fujitsu Labs Unveils Prototype PDA

Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd announced that it built a prototype wireless LAN-capable compact personal digital assistant (PDA) featuring a 4-inch SVGA LCD display with a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels. It has 802.11b wireless LAN, Bluetooth and infrared communication capabilities so that it can access directly to a LAN or virtual private network (VPN) without using any communication tool.

JCB to Test Biometric Authentication; Fingerprint Identification

JCB Co., Ltd. has announced a biometric authentication trial project in a mobile environment. The trial starts November in Japan with JCB testing the usefulness of fingerprint authentication for mobile access to JCB’s on-line cardmember account inquiry service ‘MyJCB’, using NTT DoCoMo’s F505i mobile phone equipped with a fingerprint scanner. In this trial, the participants download the JCB Safety Login i-appli application, developed in cooperation with Fujitsu Ltd., to the F505i mobile phone to verify fingerprints information.

WPC Expo 2003: 1st FOMA Intl. Video Call – DoCoMo Finally in the Drivers Seat?

WWJ was busy shooting video at Makahari Messe in Chiba last week, think telematics, wristphones and international FOMA videoconferencing. But enough teasing: The news we didn’t see elsewhere about the show was that DoCoMo, is – finally – taking telematics seriously, as we found in a quick interview with Hidenori Obara of DoCoMo’s ITS Business Promotion Office. Obara admitted that DoCoMo is “behind” KDDI, with the latter pushing all sorts of mobile-WLAN technologies to potentially hook into a slab of Japan’s 12.3 million in-auto car navigation (car nabi) systems. In a separate development, we heard that Seiko is adding a color screen, but not a camera function, on its Wristomo PHS phone. Unsurprisingly, they are not planning to mount a CCD chip because it’ll make the wearers’ wrist limp from the extra weight, and the extra battery power needed might be another issue. Tune in next week and see it all for yourself when we show FOMA’s first international video call, chat with DoCoMo’s Mariko Hanaoka, and get a peek at Panasonic’s next killer app. for camera phones everywhere!!

Mobile Kaizen and Why Japan Still Matters

Conventional wisdom teaches that Japan’s mobile industry is at least 18 months in front of Europe (and years ahead of the US). That truism is no more, however, as Europe’s cellular carriers, handset makers, and wireless Internet content providers have sweated blood to catch up – and catch up they have indeed. Daniel Scuka is in Germany this fall where he’s helping WWJpartner Mobile Economy conduct a series of seminarsentitled “Mobile Kaizen in Japan” examining how Japan’s mobileindustry maintains its lead through the continuous roll-out of improvementsin all aspects of the wireless Internet.

Fujitsu and Nokia Collaborate to Provide Enterprise Mobility Solutions

Fujitsu Limited and Nokia today announced that they will cooperatively develop and provide end-to-end mobile solutions and services for enterprises utilizing Nokia’s range of business terminals and platforms and Fujitsu’s wide range of capabilities in consulting, systems integration and managed services. The companies will provide secure, easy-to-use horizontal and customized vertical mobility solutions and services for companies that want to take advantage of mobility to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve business processes. Initial rollouts will start immediately in the Nordic region and the UK, with expansion into selected regions of EMEA and Asia Pacific anticipated in the early part of 2004.