Great, so it's offical then: There will be a Nokia phone supporting imode.
I’m very surprised since I assumed Nokia would try to refrain from supplying
to any of the European carrier initiated services (ie V-live and imode) as
long as possible. Of course there was the nokia camera phone for vodafone
live – however it is heavy and large, especially in comparison with the
other 2 live handsets, which I think Nokia realized and never considered it
as one of their premier handsets. In general European users tend not to care
very much about network provider since differentiation is not that apparent
(and not even possible) while the major use is voice and SMS. Now carriers
are offering japan-inspired services which I think is something major
handset makers (esp nokia being the largest by far) welcome.
Why? My theory has always been that European makers prefer the existing
situation where 1) they have a great deal of autonomy and 2) are the main
criterion that users generally decide on when choosing a phone. Looking at
Japan, I think Japanese makers are a lot more dependent on carriers and –
more importantly – users look *first* at service and then at handset.
Therefore I always thought Nokia and the like would prefer the current
situation in Europe, where users care a lot more about handset than about
operator. Then again, I assume the Nokia imode phone will be different from
the current European imode handsets, which can only be obtained from an
imode provider. I am surprised already that nokia is – to some extent –
supporting imode.
I would be even more surprised if KPN managed to get *exclusivity*.
(which would disprove my
Nokia-does-not-like-carrier-initiated-servcies-theory and also make the
mobile internet thesis I am currently working totally irrelevant)
- Richard
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Received on Fri Mar 14 17:16:45 2003