Hi,
First I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself. I work as a mobile
solutions developer for a company located in the UK (NOT London!). As we
operate globally, I spend a lot of my time keeping in touch with what is
happening outside of the confines of Europe. As such I seem to have fallen
head first into i-mode, Japan, and the east in general.
I'd like to post a posting that I originally placed (in another group) in
response to Giles Richter's request for comments on an article at
http://anima.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$510, any comments or
thoughts would be appreciated:
[The comments]
On the whole I agree with you the Western media have been throwing their
usual wild, misinformed, ill thought out ideas to their readers.
There is no argument that NTT DoCoMo's success in terms of numbers of
subscribers has been a great.
However, there are a few points that have been raised, which should not be
dismissed so eagerly:
1. The public may tolerate the recent losses of service, but would Western
consumers tolerate such a loss of service? Remember, if (when) i-mode is
exported the consumer is more likely to have a choice of service/content
providers (especially in the US & Europe).
2. Japan is culturally unique; this may help explain the massive growth in
i-mode. However, there are still a lot of constants across the world: if the
service is user friendly and affordable and the marketing makes you want to
buy...
3. Market conditions are different. In other parts of the world PC access
and/or television access to the internet is very popular. In other words for
many users in Japan the phone is their only access to the Internet; outside
of Japan most people will use it as a second method of internet access.
With all that said we must not forget that yesterday the press was
chastising WAP, today i-mode, and tomorrow...who knows?
Peter Roxburgh
Mobile Solutions Developer
peter.roxburgh@securetrading.com
http://www.securetrading.com
Tel: +44 (0) 1248 672007
Fax: +44 (0) 1248 672017
Received on Fri Aug 11 17:57:17 2000