Nokia
Nokia

Nokia

Nokia's N73 Finally Available in Japan

SoftBank Mobile announced that it has started deliveries of their so-called 705NK, Nokia’s N73 which has been customized for the Japan market, and will be on sale from January 13. The handset features include; quad-band GSM / W-CDMA chipset for global roaming, PC Suite capability for reading Word, Excel, Power-Point documents, a QVGA LCD sreen with3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and music player functions combined with FM radio. It will be available in three colors – deep plum, light sand, and newly added color, metallic red.

Handset Makers Sued over Bluetooth

Three major electronics companies have been sued by a foundation which claims that their use of Bluetooth wireless technology infringed on patented work at the University of Washington. According to the lawsuit, Bluetooth-based computers, cell phones and headsets made by Matsushita, Samsung, and Nokia have violated four patents, including one that was issued for research done in the mid-1990s by Edwin Suominen when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Washington.

Japan's Mobile Year in Review

It was the best of times, it was… well, it really was the best of times! Also, as the famous line from Dickens goes, it was the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness and the season of.. Mobile!

Looking back on 2006, it’s hard to decide which news from Japan’s mobile scene was the most spectacular. Vodafone pulled out, Softbank stood up, mobile number portability struck, a record number of new handsets hit the street and – as December winds down – Motorola and Samsung are shipping first foreign-made 3G units into Japan.

A ‘quick’ look at what caught WWJ’s attention in ’06 after the jump.

Sanyo Rumored to Exit Handset Business

Sanyo, which is headed for its third straight loss this business year, plans to sell its cellphone operations as part of a new restructuring plan, the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported on Thursday. The business daily said Sanyo, which earlier this year issued $2.6 billion worth of preferred shares on very favourable terms to Goldman Sachs and two other financial institutions to ensure its survival, will also sell its semiconductor division. Sadakazu Shima, a spokesman for the Osaka-based electronics maker, declined to comment on the report.

UPDATE: Sanyo has denied the rumor and will disclose details of its reorganization when it reports first-half earnings on Friday.

Japan FTC to Investigate Qualcomm

Japan’s antitrust watchdog has told Qualcomm Inc.’s Japanese subsidiary that it may investigate its licensing and chip business practices in Japan, Qualcomm said on Thursday, sending its shares down more than 3 percent. The news comes after sources said last week that the European Commission is likely to intensify its investigation of Qualcomm’s patent licensing rates for a new generation of mobile phone technology. Japan’s Fair Trade Commission did not say when it might investigate the company or identify any complainant, Qualcomm said.

i-mode Dead Down Under?

i-mode Strategy is reporting that Telstra’s recent launch announcement of their new “Next G” service lacks any reference to the carrier’s past commitment to i-mode. The closing paragraph states: Personally, I’ll probably buy Next G, although I’d prefer a Nokia handset and they seem to be left out in the cold (not to mention NEC who are not on offer for Next G and given their dependence on the success of i-mode, which is finished, will probably close down their mobile division in Australia).

NFC Forum Issues Specifications

The NFC Forum, a non-profit industry association advancing the use of near field communication (NFC) technology, has announced the publication of its first four specifications. NFC technology is a short-range, standards-based wireless connectivity technology which allows consumers to perform safe contactless transactions, access digital content and connect electronic devices with a single touch. The NFC Forum’s Sponsor Members include: HP, MasterCard, Microsoft, Nokia, NEC, Panasonic, Renesas, Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sony Corp., Texas Instruments and Visa Intl.

Nokia Ships N71 Handset to Japan

Nokia has started deliveries of Nokia N71 (Vodafone 804NK) in Japan. The Nokia N71 customized for Vodafone K.K. will be marketed in Vodafone K.K.’s 3G lineup under the name “Nokia N71 (Vodafone 804NK)” and became commercially available in Japan from August 12. Nokia has provided Vodafone K.K. with three 3G models so far: The Nokia 6680 (Vodafone 702NK II) which became available in December 2005 and the Nokia 6630 (Vodafone 702NK) which became available in December 2004, and the Nokia 6650 (V-NM701), which was added in August 2003.

Kyocera to Share Research Costs

Kyocera Corp., which makes handsets for Carlyle Group Inc.’s Willcom Inc. and KDDI Corp., plans to boost profit by sharing research costs at its mobile phone and network businesses in Japan, U.S. and China, its president said. The company is creating a new unit to combine the businesses and shifting some development operations to India, President Makoto Kawamura said in an interview in Kyoto yesterday. The new unit will comprise of the company’s handset-making business in Japan, San Diego, California-based Kyocera Wireless Corp. and a cell phone business in China, Kawamura said.

Japan 3G Beats the Hype – Lessons for European Cellcos

Japan 3G Beats the Hype - Lessons for European CellcosThe International Herald Tribune ran a couple of gloomy 3G-related articles last week (see “3G cost billions: Will it ever live up to its hype?” and “Operators in Asia learn from mistakes”). It’s the height of the summer vacation slow-news cycle, and maybe the IHT was just fishing for some headline attention, but we couldn’t let these egregiously faulty items pass without comment.

3G cost billions: Will it ever live up to its hype?

European mobile phone companies spent $129 billion six years ago to buy licenses for third-generation (3G) networks, which were supposed to give people the freedom to virtually live from their cell phones, reading email, browsing the Internet, placing video calls, enjoying music and movies, buying products and services, making reservations, monitoring health — all from the beach, the bus, the dentist’s waiting room or wherever they were.

But today, most people use their cell phones just as they did in 2000 — to make calls — and the modest gains 3G has made do not begin to justify the massive costs of the technology, which has strapped some mobile operators financially, bankrupted entrepreneurs, spurred multibillion-euro lawsuits against governments and phone companies, and sapped research spending.

Over the long term, 3G runs the risk of becoming the Edsel of the mobile phone industry — an expensive, unwanted albatross rejected by consumers and bypassed by other, less costly technologies, some experts say.

These articles are worse than merely wrong: they help fuel the flawed thinking and misguided strategies to which 3G license holders are addicted (helping cause the continued malaise). So widespread user apathy and risible revenues must prove that 3G’s a loser, right? Wrong. And to see why, you need look no further than Japan. Why have 3G carriers elsewhere in the world not realised: you don’t have to be DoCoMo to succeed like DoCoMo does.

WWJ paid subscribers: Log in for our 10-point rebuttal to the first IHT article (‘3G Hype’). Note: it’s a little long, so best to print out and read poolside!