Harry rants:
> They always make the same mistake here: they just don't get it that by
> opening up the field for developers you actually boost demand, revenue and
> profits for the service itself and the hardware.
Yes, was it the Japanese version of Psion where you first hit this wall?
One of the palmtops anyway....
>The manufacturers and
> DoCoMo are still wed to the concept that they make most if they keep it
all
> to themselves.
Now, I suspect you'll get a different opinion from Ren here, and maybe from
me, too. As Ren and others have pointed out, DoCoMo took the rather
open approach of making i-mode HTML-compatible, and opening it up
to anyone who could put up a web page, anywhere. (Although there is the
argument that i-mode was thrown together fast to head off a celnet
bandwidth crisis - i.e., they were *forced* into a relatively open approach,
in this view of things.)
> The only maker who has understood the value of software as a
market-creator
> is Sony, who rolled over Nintendo and Sega by opening up their game
machine
> to 3rd party developers. Unfortunately they are not a big player in the
> mobile market.
That's a good comparison, but Sony has to be careful: they lose money on
each PS2, and plan to make it up in selling games. Being the source of the
machine gives them enough of an edge in profit-taking, if they move fast
enough. Theoretically, anyway. That one's not over yet.
You can only afford to be *fully* open if you have guaranteed profit
coming from somewhere, eventually. If you include subsidized
student loans, college grants, scholarships and money from Mom
and Dad as "profit", it's not hard to see how all many open-source
projects fit the profile, maybe even typify the model, at least during
their inception.
In the case of Java, it's not surprising that DoCoMo wants a franchise.
Maybe it's just greed, pure and simple. Note, however, that they are
not like IBM with the PC: being the network operators, they have
responsibilities to their users that IBM (and later, the clone-makers)
didn't. You buy software for your PC, and it screws things up for you,
well, that's your problem - IBM wasn't liable, nor were any clone makers.
DoCoMo is, ultimately, a subsidiary of a regulated telephone monopoly
still signficantly owned by (and definitely controlled by) the government
one way or the other. The caveat emptor approach doesn't quite work
when you're running a potential viral/spoofing network subsidized by
taxpayers who are, these days, none too happy and trusting to begin
with.
Imagine someone hacking the DoCoMo LBS modules and sending
hundreds of people in Shinjuku Station during rush hour the same message:
"Gas attack! Get out of the station, quick!" This could kill and injure
more people than Aum Shinrikyo did with their *real* attack. Yes,
people *in* the station could do this also, just by shouting, but I doubt
they could do it with impunity.
In short, while I am not too happy with how closed things are on the
Javaphone front, I think DoCoMo has a good case for going slow on
various issues, and Javaphone security might be one of them.
-m
leap@gol.com
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Tue Jan 30 06:13:35 2001