> [Daniel Scuka]:
> >JI launched a Japan-focus wireless newsletter three weeks ago called
> >"Wireless Watch." ..... it may be of interest to Keitai-l members.
> >http://www.japaninc.com/ww/2001/ww003.html
Gustaf Rosell responds:
> It sure is, especially since we are now lacking a bit of the more higher
> level discussions we used to have on this list (OK, it's my fault
also...).
Especially since the highest - as it were - of high level commentary
in keitai-l threatens to elicit elevated rejoinders like "What drugs are
you on?"
A question that I, by the way, would never dignify with an answer.
Ever.
Really.
(OK: Paxil, Lithium, and the occasional Ritalin. You?)
> [Daniel's] view on AT&ToCoMo is extremely interesting. How AT&T and
> DoCoMo's monopolies may turn out to be the worst of two closed worlds.
> Where's the catapult lever?
It is interesting that, unlike with DoCoMo, you will have to
pay extra to get OUT of AT&T Wireless's semi-wAOLed
garden.
Could AT&T Wireless be more Japanese than the Japanese?
After all, DoCoMo has, to my mind, been uncharacteristically
open for a Japanese company. I mean, you can actually pass
e-mail between DoCoMo phones and non-DoCoMo addresses.
Obvious enough to us, perhaps. But really pretty clueful,
compared to certain other Japanese wireless e-mail providers
in the not-so-distant past.
(Or maybe DoCoMo's relative openness in these matters
was a regulatory requirement anyway? NTT has to obey
*some* level-playing-field rules, after all. Never attribute to
zealousness what is better explained by timidity.)
Looking at it another way: maybe this AT&T Wireless
pay-to-exit approach to unofficial i-mode content is
simply a sign of the post-bubble times in the U.S., and
not such a dumb move after all.
In Japan, it's still early days for the Internet. Their internet
bubble was also tiny and brief by comparison. Once burned
twice shy.
In the U.S., charging more to leave the Garden - or at least
*saying* that you are going to - might be a realistic response
to the irrational-exuberance hangover. Content that is not
under AT&T Wireless control is, after all, a guaranteed
source of network infrastructure costs and business-model
competition (and, in the more litigious U.S., legal liability),
without being a proven profit machine there just yet.
I say, "response," while admitting that it may be an
over-reaction. But some over-reactions make sense
in an investment environment where there's been a
whole lotta over-reactin' goin' on.
As the water reddens in the cannibalistic shark-tank of
wireless telecom, AT&T Wireless might be excused from
talking about offering *any* added value without an
added fee, so as to avoid spooking already-panicky
tech-stock markets. Just look at all those "free" dot-com
business models that turned from loss-leader strategies
into loss-bleeder tragedies.
Kinda makes you want to evolve legs and crawl
out on dry land, doesn't it?
Or, failing that, get suspended above the churning
pink froth of the shark-tank.
So far, in that respect, AT&T Wireless is being smart.
They said, "Show me the money," and DoCoMo
coughed up a 16% stake. Now, AT&T may simply be
saying, "Yes, you can do that. We know. After all, *we*
used to be a cash-rich monopoly, too. Now show me
some money earned off some *Americans*."
There's time to become more DoCoMoidal later, if
that approach proves to make more sense for a U.S.
i-mode. In any case, AT&T Wireless' approach
would much better than starting out free, and discovering
later that they should have charged. At least as things
stand.
Or maybe not. Who knows? Not me. It's not like I get
paid to analyze these things, y'know.
Anyway, I have to go take my medication now.
-m
leap@gol.com
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Mon Apr 9 06:47:43 2001