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Vodafone Japan Launches Visto Push Mail

Vodafone Japan Launches Visto Push MailYesterday, Vodafone Japan announced ‘Office Mail’ a new, secure push-mail corporate solution for 3G powered by Visto. Japan’s DoCoMo, KDDI and Vodafone have never had a lot of success in selling mobile applications to the corporate market due to the carriers’ overwhelming focus on the highly profitable consumer market. Perhaps Vodafone’s selection of a cool Nokia Symbian phone and the promise of more Nokia devices having a buttoned-down, made-overseas, cool business image will get corporate users bugging their IT managers to call Big Red and sign up for Office Mail.

Vodafone’s Office Mail is powered by the Visto Mobile Solution platform, and Vodafone K.K. says it will be able to offer subscribers secure, real-time, two-way delivery of email, contacts and calendars to select phones, starting with the new 702NK II, also known as the Nokia 6680 Smartphone. Office Mail is targeted at business professionals at large and small companies and SOHOs as well as at consumers.

3G Network Limitations Define Mobile TV

3G Network Limitations Define Mobile TVIt’s rare for WWJ editors, a jaded bunch, to get too excited about new service announcements, but on 6 December, we jumped on this fresh Vodafone press release that seemed to herald the emergence of the rather cool, made-in-Japan ‘Vodafone Live! BB’ (BB= broadband) music- and video-download service into the Group’s European markets. Vodafone live! BB uses the ‘i-Pod model’ to get large media files onto mobile phones, avoiding network traffic fees and should be, we have always thought, a no-brainer for export to Vodafone Opcos outside Japan. Don’t mobilers everywhere want to save on packet/data fees and get audio and DVD-quality video onto their handsets?

Korean 3G Phone Finally Hits Japan Market

Korean 3G Phone Finally Hits Japan MarketKDDI/au has announced the roll-out of their A1405PT, made by Pantech & Curitel, will begin today in the Hokkaido region and throughout all areas of Japan over the weekend. The phone was jointly developed with KDDI and marks the first entry of a Korean maker’s handset into the Japanese market. Touted, at 98 grams, as the ‘lightest 3G handset’ available in the market, it comes with a limited set of features (only a VGA camera, for example), but it does have an organic EL “Stream Screen” sub-display and has a built-in crime prevention buzzer function, a feature which was also just introduced by DoCoMo (for good reason).

WWJ has been tracking rumours and hints on the entry of Korean terminals for some time now but this is hard fact on the ground. We have seen Sanyo and Casio pushing into the U.S. market along with Sharp and NEC making moves in Europe. It’s clearly becoming a two-way street with the recent launch of Motorola’s M-1000 with DoCoMo, who have also indicated that LG and Nokia models are in the pipeline.

WAMO: Mobile Music Downloads Adding Video Content

WAMO: Mobile Music Downloads Adding Video ContentWarner Music Japan and KDDI Corp. have announced an agreement which will allow access to what is billed as the world’s first mobile music bundle: a package of audio, video, graphic and text content in a single, downloadable file. The service is available on au’s CDMA 1X WIN network and launched on 1 December with Sean Paul’s Za Trinity album. The partners’ press announcement [in Japanese] indicates a steady flow of new material in the pipeline for 2006. The music bundles are available on Warner Mobile – also known as ‘WAMO’ – which aims to allow club members to gain earlier-than-anywhere-else access to the label’s releases, artist interviews and live event schedules.

The downloadable ‘WAMO Packs’ include a variety of mobile music products such as videotones, mastertones and Flash screensavers and menus as part of a single download with the intention of letting customers customize their cell phone with their favorite artist. WAMO Packs also contain bonus material, such as video commentary from the artists, detailed information about the artists and their music, photos, cover art and links to web sites for additional information online.

This evolution in mobile music will come as no big surprise to those who attended the Mobile Monday Tokyo event at KDDI’s Designing Studio in June!

Willcom Sees Strong Initial Sales

Willcom Sees Strong Initial Sales“Despite the high prices, there were huge line-ups waiting to buy the new Willcom PHSes,” said my Kiwi pal in an email last night. It looks like some of Willcom’s PHS phones appear to be selling well on the strength of flat-rate voice and data and handsets that are at least comparable to the high-end 3G cellular models from the Big Three carriers. Is this a hint of price destruction to come when the new licensees jump into the market in 2006?

“It normally takes about 20 minutes to get a new phone, but the wait for the new Willcom models on the first day of sales was over an hour and a half. A day or two later and the long lines have vanished,” added Keith Wilkinson, a long-time Japan hand and a keen watcher of all things electronic.

He was referring to the WX300K, WX310K and WX310SA, from Kyocera and Sanyo, as initially reported by WWJ in October, the first in a new series of PHS models. PHS is the shorter-range, non-cellular standard that has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity due to lower costs of usage and flat-rate pricing. According to Willcom, phones could be reserved starting on 11 November, and became or will become available in shops on the 18th (WX300K, silver and ochre), the 25th (WX310K, silver & pink; WX310SA, silver & red) and the 30th (WX310K, other color).

KDDI: No Plan to Increase Subsidies

KDDI Corp., the second-biggest cell- phone company in Japan’s $71 billion industry, plans to add new subscribers without having to pay more incentives to retailers like rivals NTT DoCoMo Inc. and Vodafone K.K., “We’ve no plans to pay more subsidies per handset to add users,” President Tadashi Onodera said in a Nov. 25 interview. “We don’t see a need in giving bigger discounts on handsets if our customers are satisfied with our services.” Japanese wireless operators pay commissions to retailers for each handset sold to encourage sales, the phones are sold below manufacturing costs to consumers as carriers make their money from monthly fees.