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NTT to Start i-mode Services in U.S.
Vertigo Donkey writes: "Reuters has a report on NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s debut on the London and New York stock markets on Friday. What does this mean for the US? Well, according to a (very) brief article in the Japan Times, DoCoMo plans to offer 'its i-mode Internet-capable mobile phone service in the United States before the end of this year.'"
I think it means that the $400 I just spent for my Kyocera smart phone is for naught. I really wish that the cell vendors over here in the states would get their shit together and offer us something decent. How about simply bringing us to the same level as European cell service? I'm not sure that this imode internet phone is that useful though. All the article really says is that DoCoMo is contracted with AT&T. At least with my phone, I get the Palm OS. Granted, the screen is about 25% smaller, but I can still play solitare in meetings with it quite nicely. And, of course, get all the functional;ity of a Palm PDA plus some cool phone specific apps.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
Various analysts have all predicted i-mode is doomed to fail in europe. The business model as it stands in Japan just doesn't work. One of the main reasons for i-mode's success in Japan was the lack of text messaging. Europe has had this for some time, phone's and networks are nearly at the i-mode level and given 3G investment from other networks, seems unlikely to succeed. Jon (Doing WAP development!)
"While this is great I suppose, I am surprised that they will not begin with the usual heavy-weight mobile-phone-friendly countries, such as Finland, Sweden.."
I live in Finland and I'm definitely a "first mover". Guess what? I wouldn't get an i-mode phone. I'm perfectly happy with my current GSM triple band, GPRS & Bluetooth capable Ericsson T68 (it has a color screen too and is very small). It works in just about every country in the world, USA included. My laptop and PDA connects to the internet with it, without any wires what so ever. GPRS is pretty cheap too (depending of course what you use it for). What extra would i-mode give me over the current phone and service that I have?
GSM & GPRS & SMS & WAP & J2ME are technology wise up there with i-mode. GSM gives you something that i-mode doesn't: it works just about anywhere in the world.