Well, not sure I completely agree with you, since phones in North
America are also sold through the carriers. But neither low price (for
"good" phones) nor feature richness has come out of it.
Nevertheless, it's good news. I wonder if this means overseas carriers
will finaly start dealing with 2-byte messaging, real switchable
localized UI on phones, and all that other good stuff....
Cheers,
Joe
On Nov 18, 2003, at 7:41 AM, Martyn_Williams@idg.com wrote:
> Its interesting to see the Japanese model, whereby the phone is sold
> by the
> maker to the carrier and then on to the consumer, begin to spread
> overseas.
> It certainly makes the carriers put their money where their mouths are
> and
> order thousands or millions of phones with whatever new features are
> being
> pitched in the belief they will be a hit with consumers. Technical
> problems
> aside, it seems one of the biggest drivers of I-mode/WAP in Japan has
> been
> the wide selection of attractive handsets and low prices. Overseas it
> also
> seemed to be a cycle - no users to no phones but no phones because no
> users
> - although if this will change things remains to be seen.
Received on Wed Nov 19 00:52:17 2003