Tony Chan wrote:
> [...]
> Of course, if you are Openwave or Microsoft or Qualcomm, then it might be time
> to start worrying and begging to be let in.
Uh... I think microsoft is trying to attack the problem from the
ass-end of things (i.e.. where you keep your wallet). Besides,
why get mired down in setting standards for the loss leader
handset market (who's growth is starting to petter-out and
who's internet access networks have yet to be built in most
of the world) if you can't own the network that actually
generates the profit?
Microsoft's basic proposition is:
What use, if any, is internet access on a cell phone if you can't:
1) make money from it (DoCoMo does this)
2) allow the user to transparently buy stuff and make
make money from the transaction (indeed, the profit
gained by terminating the transaction could *easily*
make the any profit gained from terminating the call
look petty).
And if they aren't successful in being invited, even *paid*, to
join any such standards consortiums/industry klusterfscks, then
they'll just put the hotmail asset on the table and let the carriers
force the issue (and the music industry would be wise to sit up
and start taking notes if such a gambit proved successful).
A friend of mind, who follows the deepest nokes and cranies
of the internet/telcom industry, said he had run across an
interesting little blurb somewhere that Honda was actually
considering bundeling some type of cellular phone access with
a purchase of their cars for the simple reason that a sizable
market niche exists for whom their monthly cellular phone bills
have out stripped their car payments for the duration of the
average car loan.... (all that really says to me is that the average
cellular phone user in Japan is used to getting screwed and
has little choice in the matter... that and that lots of people are
due to start dropping dead from brain tumors). I don't know of
any Japanese carriers stupid enough to make that kind of
"value move", but sometimes the business physics in Japan
don't map well to my own little personal version of reality.
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Received on Thu Nov 15 11:44:28 2001