(keitai-l) Microsoft and the JavaPhone? [BIZBUZ]

Some time back, I posted some broodings about
Microsoft doing one of its classic takeover moves:
buying a franchise in JavaPhone platform definition:

www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/archives/2000-07/0214.html

More recently, I retracted this speculation,
albeit hesitantly.  Microsoft isn't so interested
in JavaPhones, it seems, and might not get
involved until it's too late.  And there *is* such
a thing as too late, even for Microsoft.  Just
look at the Palm OS vs. WinCE.

Now, however, I've gotten to wondering again, and
here's why: iMode's North American debut will be
in Seattle.

Seattle is home to Microsoft, of course, but also
the former McCaw Cellular, which worked with
Microsoft on the ill-fated Teledesic satellite phone
venture, and which became "AT&T Wireless Services".
This has created a hotbed of wireless-net initiatives
that are now treading water, waiting for the wave:

http://www.unstrung.com/server/display.php3?id=468&cat_id=3

NTT has, of course, just bought a significant stake
in AT&T wireless.  The main reason seems to be
so that it can get iMode rolling through the U.S.

So there it is: physical proximity (Greater Seattle
includes Redmond, which hosts Microsoft's main
campus), and all those longstanding corporate
working relationships.

Can you say "homeboy"?  I knew you could.

There's also a certain symbolism here.  Microsoft,
TEPCO and Softbank made their own quasi-wireless
internet bid some time back here in Tokyo - the
idea being that TEPCO had the fiber, Softbank was
on the ground, and Microsoft ...well, I don't know
what, exactly, Microsoft was going to bring to the
party.  Microsoft *has* done telecom, though,
and in Asia; they had a big project in Indonesia
maybe 10 years ago, and have doubtless done
other related things, just to get its feet wet.
So it's not a stretch.

This Microsoft/TEPCO/Softbank scheme never broke
ground, though.  Scarcely-plausible excuses were
mumbled about "technical difficulties," but basically,
I think NTT gave them the bum's rush for their
blatant poaching attempt; especially since the plan
amounted to fiber-to-the-home, a long-broken
promise that NTT had been part of, way back
when.  The embarrassment would have been too
great.

http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,35261,00.html

Now, though, here's NTT coming to *Microsoft's*
home town.  Ballmer, Gates et al. now *really* have
to sit up and take notice of JavaPhone potential.

The thing is, they might end up liking what they see.
Letting bygones be bygones, they could actually *like*
NTT.  "Why, they're a poor little beleaguered monopoly
that can't get no respect, just like us," they might think.
They could sit around together in Seattle fern bars,
commiserating about their harassment from all those
jerk-off antitrust litigators who don't have real lives.

And in DoCoMo, Microsoft may find a likeminded view
of Java: that it's just a popular language, not a whole
platform.  After all, Java as implemented on iMode
phones doesn't answer to Sun's MIDP platform definition,
nor really to  anyone else's - it's just convenient
that Sun defined something that could be adapted
to DoCoMo purposes.

Also, Microsoft has a history of bowing to Japanese
platform definition on the hardware side.  E.g., DOS
for the PC9800.  Essentially proprietary platforms
don't really bother Microsoft, as long as it gets a
stake in something big.

Will iMode be big in the U.S.?  The billion-dollar
question.  If it has to fail in the U.S., though, better
that it fail in Seattle than in, say, L.A., Chicago,
Houston or New York, where it would be a
colossal marketing blunder.  Fail in Seattle,
they just have "an instructive experiment in
a technology hotbed."

Note that NTT *didn't* choose Silicon Valley,
home to Sun Microsystems.

In any case, if iMode flies in Seattle, there's little
question in my mind that it will swing out into
the rest of the U.S. with Microsoft right behind
it, pushing hard.

-m
leap@gol.com




[ Did you check the archives?   http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]