Namco Networks has announced an exclusive partnership with KDDI to represent the carriers large catalog of mobile games from Japanese publishers and developers in North American. Running on Qualcomms BREW technology, KDDI has a mobile games catalog which includes a wide range of puzzle, action and strategy games. Financial details of the venture were not included with the statement.
According to a report on Market Watch, KDDI aims to buy 4,300 shares of Acrodea Inc. , or a 6.6% stake in the handset-use software developer, through markets by the end of April. The value of the share purchase will be around Y11 billion, based on Wednesday’s closing price of Acrodea shares at Y248,000. KDDI said in a press release it seeks to strengthen ties with Acrodea in developing [applications for] mobile phone handsets.
According to an article on eMarketer, “What stands out in the Japanese mobile market is the fact that innovation is shifting toward business models and marketing tactics as opposed to technical features and functions … the explosion of non-official mobile content Web sites is causing the sun to set on the i-mode business model of a dominant mobile carrier selling incremental content and services to its user base,” says John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer senior analyst.
There are several ‘gee-whiz’ statements in this summary, starting with “Marketers are looking to the Japanese mobile market as a model of the converged media future,” which are clearly designed to help sell their research report. However, we really must challenge outright some of the assurances offered. For example, the eMarketer quote above which states that “Innovation is shifting toward business models and marketing tactics as opposed to technical features and functions” is off-base on both counts.
The continued innovations from DoCoMo and the other carriers in network speed, handset design and content & service offerings speak volumes about the Japanese mobile market and the continued utterly fundamental role of the carrier in driving innovation. Granted, the increase in non-official content sites was obvious and predictable, given how easy the continuing carrier-led innovations make getting onto the mobile web for both providers and surfers. And the carriers have known this from Day 1 of i-mode.
I was talking to my accountant last week; she’s a smart, self-employed mid-career professional with a husband and kids and she’s definitely one of the more practical-minded Europeans I know.
We were talking about ‘handys’ (keitai, in Germany), and I told her about the huge success the mobile Internet and 3G are having (still) in Japan, versus in Europe where no one’s making a single (Euro) cent on UMTS. Her reaction was typical, but interesting: “I’m not going to use the phone for sending mail or anything but talking. The keypad is far too tiny. It’s just not in the mindset of my generation.”
I was talking to my accountant last week; she’s a smart, self-employed mid-career professional with a husband and kids and she’s definitely one of the more practical-minded Europeans I know. We were talking about ‘handys’ (keitai, in Germany), and I told her about the huge success the mobile Internet and 3G are having (still) in Japan, versus the perception in Europe that no one’s making a single (Euro) cent on UMTS. Her reaction was typical, but interesting: “I’m not going to use the phone for sending mail or anything but talking. The keypad is far too tiny. It’s just not in the mindset of my generation.”
Interestingly, she added: “Perhaps if our kids started using them [data-enabled mobile phones] early, they’d grow up thinking about using it for all that mail and stuff. I’d buy a data handy for my daughter…” I jumped right in, and told her “that’s exactly what’s happening in Japan.” Of course, Wireless Watchers like the smart readers of this newsletter know that the success factors behind mobile usage didn’t (and don’t) depend on youth growing up with i-mode.
KDDI has announced early results from their joint R&D with Fujitsu Labs on energy and cost saving measures for future WiMax base stations. Nitride gallium HEMT, a stronger semiconductor material than conventional silicon, was used in a field experiment which achieved electric power output of 25W and operation frequency 2.5GHz. According to the statement they recorded electric power efficiency of the transmission amplifier at 30% improvement over previous attempts.
