jeffrey funk wrote:
> This is a very interesting article. I agree completely with Ren's thesis
> that young people are and will continue to be the major users of the mobile
> internet in japan and elsewhere (assuming the western carriers figure it
> out).
Thanks. Support from Prof. Funk gives me a bit of hope that I'm not totally
clueless in this space.
> They have time to kill and thus want some simple entertainment while
> the business user has no time to kill and thus wants expensive,
> sophisticated and perfect technology. My question is why the mobile Internet
> is so different from other technologies? Most technologies are adopted first
> by business users and after the price goes down the rest of the public
> adopts the technologies. This is the way PCs and mobile phones diffused in
> the 80s and 90s. Is the mobile Internet different because the price of the
> technology (phones and content) is already cheap and thus young people can
> afford it and are willing to experiment? Were young people the initial users
> of the fixed-line Internet in the mid-90s and if so was it because the
> technology was already cheap and desire to experiment was the critical
> issue
Maybe thinking about it as a technology is the wrong way to think about it.
Perhaps if we consider wireless in Japan as a consumer phenomenon, then it makes
sense. For example MD players first hit in the consumer market and are just now
coming into business/data use.
Same thing with Aibo (though I'm yet to see the business applications of a robot
dog...) and other technologies...Flat panel TVs before flat panel
monitors...then again I could be totally off base, but I think as far as
marketing the service goes, i-mode was definitely marketed more like a consumer
device/service than a tradition technical offering.
r e n
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morgan stanley dean witter japan
e-business technologies | engineering and strategy
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Received on Thu Nov 2 03:43:42 2000