Hi James, hi all,
I am not going to comment on the personal flaming content, but some of
the facts raised in your email are interesting...
On a general note about this whole discussion, I would like to raise the
question to everyone here: who assumed that i-mode will be copied "as
is" to Europe and to other countries? There is a disctinct difference
between "learning from i-mode" and "copying i-mode". The first one means
to create a service that takes the best factors from the i-mode model
(assuming they can be exported/imported) and uses them *creatively* for
the to-be-created service. The second one would be to just copy it,
which sounds pretty stupid to me.
It might also be wise to look at more than just i-mode. In Japan alone,
there are two more competing mobile Internet services and at least one
of them shines with a strong brand image, technological innovation and
very creative marketing. Why not analyze all succesfull services and get
the best from everything while getting rid of what doesn't seem to
translate well?
The *thinking* and the strategy behind the i-mode business model, that
is what other companies can learn from. The simplicity, the mass market
orientation, the usage of de facto technology standards (the claim that
i-mode is built on proprietary technologies is wrong), the convenient
content billing system service, the rich content with a balanced
selection of different categories (and I do defend the semi-walled
i-mode garden concept - and if its only because for the average
consumer, guidance and pre-selection of content IS extremly important),
just some examples.
> Multi-billion dollar industry. More than 1000 companies. Many new
jobs.
>
> Ummmmm.... sounds a bit like the Internet, doesn't it Gerhard? I
> personally wouldn't say the web was a "failure", but by late
1999/early
> 2000 it was certainly ready for a shakeout. Thousands of companies
have
> subsequently gone bust. Thousands of folks have lost their jobs. And
for
> companies such as EMC, Oracle and so on which had told investors the
> internet represented "a new multi-billion dollar industry" the truth
was
> out there just waiting to make itself felt. Just look at those share
> prices and revenue streams now.=20
Fact is that only 5-10% of all i-mode content providers are actually
profitable (and some of these quite a lot). The others are generating
revenue or not, but they spend more than they earn. About all these
points that have been critizized here, there is an ongoing and heated
discussion in the Japanese mobile market going on as well. An analyze of
that discussion would be fruitful for the discussion here. (Btw, I do
not believe that something like an "imode industry" exists. I am even
hesitating to say "wireless industry" or "mobile Internet industry").
What I want to say is: nobody has ever said that the way i-mode has been
designed by NTT DoCoMo is the *only* way mobile Internet can be done,
whether in Japan or elsewhere. And nobody has ever said that DoCoMo is
not making mistakes too - in the end, making mistakes is part of being a
pioneer anyway.
However, i-mode has gained large momentum by gaining more than 30
million i-mode subscribers in less than 3 years with a large scale
market of CAS (Content, Applications, Services) providers behind it.
There ARE many things that can be learned from this experience and from
the whole Japanese wireless market that is!
In the past, Japanese companies have been famous for copying Western
technologies and products and then making them *better*. So, why not
learn from Japan and do the same with i-mode now?!
:-)
> All that can be done in Europe and the US is learn from imode, and try
> and build viable economic models for success for businesses based on
> "handies" (I still think the German term for mobile of keitai is the
> best I have heard! It's handy geddit?) that can work given local
> circumstances and conditions.
Absolutely agree.
Cheers,
Andrea Hoffmann
--
Andrea Hoffmann - Associate Consultant - EGIS Japan
Mail: info_at_egis.co.jp WWW: http://egisjapan.com
Phone: (81) 3.32.64.10.60 - Fax: (81) 3.32.65.22.60
-- International Consulting & Project Management --
Received on Fri Dec 28 16:24:01 2001