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Paul Eijkemans writes, in part:
> Michael, you seem very knowledgeable on keitai technology.
Actually, I mostly just guess.
> Could you (and
> the other members of the group) shed some light on the questions why
Western
> manufacturers are unable to create the same fancy handsets as the Japanese
> manufacturers and why the Japanese manufacturers produce the same
> unattractive handsets in the West as all Western manufacturers do?
Victor and Ren have done a good job on this already, from a
marketing/corporate-relations standpoint. And I think that
viewpoint has all of the explanatory power you need. The only
truly Japanese technological element in this mix might be
that old standby: they sure miniaturize electronics
better than almost anyone! (A few years ago, I was calling
on my Motorola celphone in the U.S., and, after signing off,
turned to my friend, hefting the phone, and said "I can't get
used to how *big* this sucker is." He, a Silicon Valley engineer,
replied, "Really? I can't get used to how *small* it is." I, of
course, had been in Japan some years already.)
> There are also non-technical explanations such as the grip of Japanese and
> Korean manufactuers on the battery, colorscreen and handset-chip market.
But
> that does not explain the dumbness of the Japanese GSM handsets.
You mean the fact that a Japanese GSM phone doesn't work truly
globally? Well, when most Japanese go to Europe, they are too
busy talking with other Japanese on the tour bus to really care
about phoning home - which is, after all, in such a different time-
zone as to make most such calls pointless anyway. So I think this
is just a case of Japanese phone-makers triaging features in a
local-market-focused manner. Europeans are probably doing the
same, really, it's just that Europe's "locality" looks so much more
global, culturally and politically, and in its telecom infrastructure,
than Japan's. Japanese manufacturers don't really *have* to
think about global roaming - they are all scrambling to get to the
ears of 60 million more Japanese. Europeans can't afford to
*not* think about it - no single national market in Europe is even
half as big as what's left to hit in Japan, right?
-m
leap@gol.com
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Thu Mar 15 05:21:31 2001