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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.

Finally a Samsung Phone for Japan?

Seoul, Korea-based Samsung plans to sell phones to Vodafone K.K. by summer 2006, entering Japan’s $3.9 bn handset market for the first time, according to company officials involved with the talks. Sophia Kim, a Samsung spokeswoman, and Vodafone’s Tokyo-based spokesman Matthew Nicholson declined to comment. Vodafone Group already buys Samsung phones for markets outside of Japan. Interesting! We were just talking about this the other day! — Eds.

Vodafone Launches New Handsets & Service

Vodafone K.K. today announced it will commence sales of the Vodafone 702NK II (Nokia 6680) 3G handset, a Symbian OS smartphone, on 17 December 2005. The 702NK II allows customers to view Microsoft Word, Excel and other documents on their handsets and is the carrier’s first device to support their new Vodafone Office Mail service. The company also unveiled an ultra-slim 2G handset from Toshiba, the V502T, which will go on sale from the end of January 2006.

Visto Powers Vodafone K.K. Launch of Japan's First ''True Push'' Wireless Email

Visto Corporation, a leading global provider of secure push mobile email, today announced that Visto Mobile 5 with ConstantSync technology has been chosen by Vodafone K.K. to power Vodafone Office Mail, Japan’s first “True Push” wireless email service. Visto’s device-agnostic push wireless email offering enables Vodafone K.K., to deliver secure push email and PIM on leading handsets, starting with the Vodafone 702NK II (Nokia 6680). This release of the Vodafone Office Mail service follows Visto’s signature of a global contract with Vodafone Group Plc announced in April 2005. Japan is the latest region to launch a Vodafone wireless push email service powered by Visto Mobile.

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.