i will try to answer some of your questions. i
am not an expert, though, so others might
have to correct me.
>As of today, what technical aspects of the
>i-mode platform remain
>proprietary (or otherwise in control) of NTT
>DoCoMo
i would suppose that their billing infrastructure
is one of their most important proprietary
aspects. apart from the data pipe itself, of
course, and the portal, which will have to be
opened soon.
>Does DoCoMo force some content
>providers to provide their content exclusively
>only to i-mode in order to
i think the basic services (news etc.) are
non-exclusive.
docomo tries to keep some of the more
sophisticated services exclusive, though.
i have talked to someone at KDDI last year
and he told me that they were ready for music
downloads/streaming very early on, but they
had trouble finding content partners because
everyone was waiting for docomo to get their
system up and running. this implies that
docomo tries to keep systems like that
exclusive.
>What are the reasons behind NTT
>DoCoMo*s decision to open up the i-mode
>platform to other ISP*s (who can then offer
i understand that to be purely regulatory. i can't
see any other reason for docomo to sacrifice
their main differentiating service.
government just feels uneasy to have a
proprietary mobile internet controlled by just
one company.
apart from that, this is the typical Japanese
way to build new infrastructures: companies
invest and have the right to exploit the new
system for a few years, then the state takes
over.
surprisingly, people at J-Phone and KDDI I
have talked to were not 100% happy with the
opening of the portal.
with the demise of proprietary portals
differentiating factors are also vanishing. this
is harder for the smaller competitors as in an
undifferentiated market, market power is
mainly decided by price.
And Docomo definitely has a huge advantage
as far as economy of scale is concerned, they
still have close to 60% market share.
>Regarding interoperability: Can J-Sky and
>EZWeb users view i-mode sites and
>vice versa (can i-mode users view J-Sky and
>EZWeb sites)?
J-Sky and EZWeb have been "bootlegging"
content from the non-official sites for a while,
i.e. you are able to use these sites with their
phones as well.
J-Sky is already using cHTML, and EZWeb is
planning to switch to cHTML starting with their
next system (maybe they already switched, my
info is from september 2001).
so then it should be possible for imode users
to also view jsky and ezweb content unless it
is in their official portal (although i think it won't
make much sense as the most interesting
stuff is on the imode side anyway).
cheers
bFX
Received on Thu Mar 21 12:35:55 2002