(keitai-l) Re: So, will i-mode repeat its early successes in the Europeanmarket?

Hi Andrea,

agree: in the deals it makes abroad, DoCoMo hasn't made  any claims to
pushing its own content plans on European markets.. I would assume they
leave that up to the local carriers. 

again, concur- its  the execution, business model know-how that DoCoMo
exports.. 

There is definitely a lot of info out there about CHTML, but my impression
was that there is already a lot of investment into the WAP standard and
developing content in accordance with it.. (in Europe) 

i-mode is closer to supporting the rich media supported by xml than wap is,
but KDDI has proved that HDML can be tweaked to support the same features
that CHTML does.. 

I thought that the prevailing thought was that both standards will probably
evolve so handsets become interoperable so that content deveopers could
create their content only once in the end..   


Its funny- sometimes its not even worth it to respond to the Tim Sheedys of
the world. I wonder if his comment about wondering what drugs these people
were taking" are said just to raise some people's ire. 


Nina

Associate Analyst, Japan Service
Jupiter Research
21 Astor Place
New York, NY 10003
phone:917-534-6321
e-mail: nina@jup.com


> ----------
> From: 	Andrea Hoffmann
> Reply To: 	keitai-l@appelsiini.net
> Sent: 	Wednesday, April 4, 2001 9:42 AM
> To: 	keitai-l@appelsiini.net
> Subject: 	(keitai-l) Re: So, will i-mode repeat its early successes in
> the Europeanmarket? 
> 
> > So, will i-mode repeat its early successes in the European market?
> >
> > Highly unlikely, says Tim Sheedy, research analyst with International
> Data
> > Corp. 'The i-mode applications in Japan are generating real revenue,
> and are
> > a big selling point, but they won't necessarily translate to the
> European
> > market,' he says. One of the most popular applications in Japan is a
> fishing
> > simulation, which draws on data from shipping forecasts, and lets
> users
> > catch fish. A good catch means the user can upgrade his fishing tackle
> for a
> > better model. 'Some of these applications make me wonder what drugs
> these
> > people are taking,' he says. In addition, the developer community in
> Europe
> > has no experience with i-mode, and would have to start from scratch.
> 'All
> > the programming instructions are in Japanese anyway, so most of the
> > programmers in Europe would have no idea where to start,' Sheedy adds.
> > (...)
> 
> Hmm, who is saying that i-mode in Europe has to have the same
> applications running as in Japan? When DoCoMo launched i-mode in Japan,
> they tried to imagine what consumers *here on this market* would like to
> use. European operators (in coop with DoCoMo) could now do the same
> thing -- just for the European market.
> 
> For programming in i-mode, a lot of the basic information is available
> in English already, plus it shouldn't be that problem to translate the
> remaining parts. Developing content for i-mode has been proven to be a
> lot easier then for WAP in many ways, so programmers in Europe should
> actually have it easier to switch to i-mode, especially if they already
> have experience with web development.
> 
> My facit: Some of the facts Tim Sheedy mentioned might even be correct
> (for example that the fishing game would not work in Europe) but they
> are completely missing the points of what the i-mode model is really
> about and how to localize and transport a service into a different
> culture.
> 
> Cheers,
> Andrea
> 
> 
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> 
> 

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