Samsung
Samsung

Samsung

Mobile TV Solution Coming?

On top of launching full-scale digital-satellite-to-mobile-terminal broadcasting services on July 1, Mobile Broadcasting Corp. (MBCO) and its main technology backer Toshiba Corp. are making a strong, and they believe attractive, push to generate digital broadcasting revenue streams for Japan’s wireless carriers in April 2006 when DoCoMo, KDDI, and perhaps Vodafone K.K. will unleash mobiles with digital TV tuners on them. Talking to Shigekazu Hori, vice president and general manger of Toshiba Corp.’s Network Services & Contents Control Center last week, the planets could finally be aligning for a tailor-made revenue model that will finally convince Japan’s carriers to equip mobile phones with television. And, of course, as mentioned by DoCoMo’s Keiji Tachikawa last week, the fact that MPEG-4 standards have been settled and H.264 is coming doesn’t hurt either.

SEVEN Announces Support for BREW Based Handsets in Japan on KDDI

SEVEN Networks, Inc. announced today that the company’s mobile email software is now shipping on BREW-based handsets in the Japanese market. SEVEN’s software provides secure, real-time access to Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange, IMAP4 and POP3 email, calendar, personal contacts, corporate directories, network drives and desktop documents. Japan’s second largest mobile operator, KDDI Corp., is the first to launch SEVEN-enabled email services on BREW-based handsets.

Nokia and ACCESS Collaborate on Advanced Browser for 3G Multimedia Phones

ACCESS, a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet technologies, announced today that it has collaborated with Nokia to demonstrate ACCESS’ acclaimed NetFront mobile browser for WCDMA optimized releases of Nokia’s Series 60 Platform. With a broad range of plug-in support, NetFront enables downloading and playing of popular content formats such as RealMedia or MPEG4 movies, music, and SMIL packages. NetFront’s versatility makes it a perfect launch pad for multimedia and infotainment on the move.

One-Stop Shop for Series 60 Info.

The Series 60 community, headed by Nokia, has opened a new website offering a quick way of finding out what is happening with the Series 60 Platform. Launched and created by Nokia and the Series 60 licensees, Panasonic, Sendo, Samsung and Siemens, the site serves as the main portal for a wide variety of Series 60 Platform information for all key stakeholders.

Panasonic Targets 40M Handsets by '06

According to Teruo Katsura, Managing Director and Member of the Board of Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd, (PMC), Panasonic is targeting a1 trillion yen, in sales and 40 million handset production schedule for 2006, and is aiming at an 8% global market share in terms of terminal shipments by 2006. Speaking at a strategic briefing today, Katsura said that PMC wants to boost its sales 250% of its 2003 levels and hit GSM hard in Asia in particular.

Panasonic to Launch GSM 3G Mobile Blitz

Today, Teruo Katsura and Panasonic Mobile Communications announced something we’ve been lusting for over two years: A Japanese maker with brilliant technology showing the true grit to attack the world market!

We were fiddling around with Panasonic’s new FOMA 900i-series phone (not at a store near you in Europe or the United States, unfortunately) and noticed the plastic battery cover kept on falling off. At that moment, Katsura-san, managing director and member of the board of Panasonic Mobile Communications Co. Ltd. (PMC) – who we were rubbing shoulders with – turned around and said “Don’t Worry! These are only the test models!” We had a great chat with Katsura-san, who earlier today announced Panasonic’s aggressive move into GSM, Europe, Asia and the world; but that, the X700, the X60, and X66 are for later in this article. Having handled the P900i, we think it’s a cracker. It’s sleek and light and full of action, a folding design that’s beautiful in its simplicity and feather-light to touch (Oh! So far has FOMA come…!) but packing a full 3G punch – plus an SD card that plugs into a whole range of Matsushita/Panasonic equipment for what the marketing guys used to call a “richer multimedia environment.” Heavyweight congratulations to Panasonic for delivering a killer 3G phone!

The best news we have is that, aside from our love at first sight with Panasonic’s 900i, the model is alive and well and officially on sale mamonaku (soon). Of course, that could mean anytime from today, Feb. 10, to the next 10 days, although for probity’s sake, Totaro Uchiyama, manager of PMC’s Overseas Mobile Terminal Division, says the launch will be before the end of February.