I wrote a paper on this subject two years ago which is available somewhere
in the keitai archives. I describe how Docomo used its control of the PDC
standard to develop lighter handsets in cooperation with matsushtia,
mitsubishi, nec, and fujitsu than its rivals.
Jeff Funk
Comments from a senior DDI guy to me were that DDI/IDO were increasingly
successful in gaining market share during the early `90s with analogue
phones (perhaps due to sales through discount retail shops).
However, with the switch to digital, DOCOMO insisted that handsets vendors
NOT sell their newest handsets to IDO/DDI/J-Phone/Tuka until at least 6
months after Docomo had started selling them, which gave Docomo an enormous
advantage in the new digital market, and allowed them to recover market
share. This created enormous bitterness in Docomo`s rivals, DOcomo used the
technical advantage that their huge R&D division had in terms of creating
and managing specs, and imposing these on handsets vendors, and then those
handset vendors were not allowed to sell to the Docomo`s competition - and
for some of the guys I know, the bitterest of all was the fact that they
were a public utility, essentially using taxpayer`s money to gain business
advantage.
Philip Greenan
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Thu Mar 29 06:47:41 2001