Hello all,
Graham wrote (both on keitai-l and his website):
"NEC claim one of the few differences is that it supports 160 character SMS rather than 1,000 character email"
This is incorrect according to KPN's official press release:
http://www.kpn-mobile.com/i-mode.html
"Users can also send and receive e-mails containing up to 1000 characters and SMS messages up to 160 characters"
In my opinion, this is a very significant step forward. Adding standard email functionality to these phones will help opening the operator-dominated SMS messaging market -- as long as the billing model will be anywhere as cheap as seen in Japan today. Now, on average, consumers pay E0.10 per SMS, while in Japan users can send email for as little as a few yen per 1,000 characters.
This may not seem as much of a difference, but it might lead to consumers (especially younger ones) turning away from the desktop and using mobile phones as their primary messaging tool. Right now, SMS is mostly done out of convenience (e.g. no computer handy), but youngsters use MSN and similar desktop messaging tools because of cheaper pricing... They are *very* good key-pad typists, so I don't expect that to be a turn-down for them.
As analysed by fellow reseachers in Barcelona, it's the lacking of a cheap mobile messaging service in Japan that helped i-mode's extraordinary growth. It introduced inter-network email to an undeveloped market; a new tool that replaced any other previous digital messaging tool. In Europe, however, consumers have already picked up SMS in a major way, leaving the introduction of mobile email less "spectacular". The European mobile messaging market has already been developed, but can be exploited even further IMO--also introducing third-party email content (such as the Tsutaya case; and no spam please :) Now it is very expensive (not to mention cumbersome) for companies to send out SMS messages--special contracts with each operator are necessary in order to get discounts.
It seems to me that if KPN prices it mobile email service cheaply, they will win market share with young people who don't have access to a PC all the time. And by winning these customers, they can introduce them to the kinds of i-mode services you all enjoy in Japan now--bringing in additional revenue for KPN and its content partners.
I ran around the web and, for your convenience, gathered all the facts here:
http://discuss.mobilemediajapan.com/stories/storyReader$3596
I will keep this article up-to-date with fresh facts as soon as more news comes out.
Regards, from the Netherlands,
Victor Pikula
Mobilemediajapan.com
Received on Tue Dec 18 21:41:56 2001