Hi Ken
I agree with you. Ntt DoCoMo could be effective on a fragmented
market that still has not solved most of the problems of WAP:
1 - One content technology standard
2 - One transparent business model for users and content providers
4 - Real content providers support (Also to small companies)
5 - Simple interface and portal i-menu
6 - Addressing the mass market
Under this point of view only Vodafone seams a serious competitor
together, in some way, with Nokia.
The real opportunity for DoCoMo is with new generation i-mode
phones entering the market. This is still the very weak part of
Ntt DoCoMo EU strategy:
http://java.sun.com/industry/news/story/50902.do
On the other side Nokia could be the catalyzer capable of setting the
de-facto technology standard alternative to i-mode.
If Nokia phones will be the benchmark for content compatibility,
the others will follow so we will have a serious competing content
technology standard.
About business models... market will dictate the way to be competitive
and some strange revenue sharing models will probably disappear as
operators will need more and more quality content to be successful.
Vodafone is just replicating, inside the group, the i-mode strategy
but with a more effective marketing push and use of open standards
(Wap).
One question: Do you see any advantage of the european i-mode
over Vodafone Live! ?
I can't see clearly...
Giovanni Bertani
Mobile VAS consultant and Analyst
Received on Mon Jun 23 02:24:40 2003