(keitai-l) Re: ericsson's i-mode

Depend on Nick to steer the discussion sharply into the gutter.
Yeah, OK, I started it with the vibrator comment, but still....;-)

To get back on topic: what we might be seeing here is either
Malice or Stupidity on Ericsson's part.  Let me guess which.

Stupidity would be retreading a low-end WAP handset design to
do i-Mode, just to get something out there.  And there is some
evidence for this in Ren's remarks (a mere 6 lines, b&w only, poor
dithering).

Malice, on the other hand, would be to do that same stupid retread
only to innoculate the non-Japanese market against Creeping i-Mode
Disease.  I.e., to tell the masses "OK, here you have it - the i-Mode
that's been hyped to the heavens as some kind of salvation from WAP.
Here, in fact, is the very i-Mode handset that we sell in Japan.  Can you
see the difference, right off?  No?  Well, all right, then: can we forget
this
pinhead Japanese imitative fad and go ahead and recover our investment
in WAP now, please?"

I'd go with Stupidity - it's proverbially the safer bet - except for
one thing.  This is the telecom industry we're talking about.  In this
shark-tank, you have Absence of Malice only by happy accident
(though there is no shortage of stupidity either, come to think of it.)

i-Mode may be regarded as one of those happy accidents,
by the way.  As I understand the story, it goes like this.

Part One: U.S. gaiatsu pushed an otherwise-balking NTT into a
serious wireless effort.  I suppose this stemmed from U.S. electronics
industry pressure to sell U.S.-made DSP chips and cellular
switching gear into an economy that mostly sends electronics
to the U.S.  Before that, Japan's celphone use was effectively
regulated into marginality.  Ah, the Early Nineties....the
Structural Impediments Initiative talks...The Japan That
Can Say No (um, sort of)....and remember President George Bush,
here on an auto-industry lobbying errand, tossing his cookies into
the laps of LDP pols during a formal dinner?  Don't you just *hate*
it when that happens?...whoa, wait, I'm getting nostalgic, here.....

So where was I?  Oh, yeah: Part Two. DoCoMo is said to have
piggy-backed packet networking and character-code messaging onto
a cellular net *not* because they saw major revenue opportunities, but
rather because they feared their network would be overloaded if it
had to carry only voice.  They were worried that they had seriously
underestimated pent-up demand.  I mean, we're talking Miles from The
Parking Lot and No Spare Diapers.  This forced the issue: how
to distinguish DoCoMo's offering from the character-mode services of
those other clunky keitai systems.  It had to be usable because it actually
had to get widely used to save DoCoMo face.  So how about something
...uh...simple?  But also...cool, somehow?  Could we ride this Web-mania,
maybe?  Anybody got a better idea?  No?

The rest is history.  Which just goes to show you: sometimes its
a farce even the *first* time around.

In any case, Ericsson doesn't have the advantage of blundering
into history.  They are more in the position NTT now has with
its heavy investment in ISDN as ADSL charges into the arena:
i.e., their patient plotting foiled by technological turbulence.  The
"WAP Is Brilliant!" banner is in tatters.  This leaves Ericsson
and its ilk with little more to wave in WAP's defense than
"i-Mode Is Garbage Too, Y'Know."  With their credibility
already so questionable on these issues, they would, of course,
have to back up this rear-guard defense in the most concrete
way possible: with an i-Mode phone that *was*, patently, garbage.
And this stage-prop would only convince an audience that didn't
know any better yet.  That audience is not hard to find: it's the
rest of the world.  In that one respect, Ericsson is in luck.

I know this sounds like a terrifically cynical and Machiavellian scorched-
earth containment tactic.  Think about it, though.  What would *you*
do if *you* were responsible for  hundreds of millions of dollars of
now-endangered investment?

I think your strategy would be WAP: "Why Accede Prematurely?"

-m
leap@gol.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick May" <nick@kyushu.com>
To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
Sent: Monday, December 18, 2000 8:59 PM
Subject: (keitai-l) Re: ericsson's i-mode


> keitai-l@appelsiini.net writes:
> >Wow this phone sucks.
>
> WOW!
>
> Given the market for a phone that vibrates, a phone that SUCKS as well
> will be a real winner!
>
> I wonder when other manufactureres will add this remarkable and innovative
> feature.
>
> nick
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [ Did you check the archives?   http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
>
>


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