The reason to forgo profit at this time is easy to explain - NEC is
interested in making the wireless telephone (with built-in biometric
authentication) the standard device for e-commerce.
Eric Hildum
Director, CTC Business Unit
Itochu Technology Inc.
3100 Patrick Henry Drive
Santa Clara, CA 95054-1850 USA
Tel: +1-408-653-2818
Fax: +1-408-727-4619
> From: "Michael Turner" <leap@gol.com>
> Reply-To: keitai-l@appelsiini.net
> Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 23:37:15 +0900
> To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
> Subject: (keitai-l) Re: New member/i-mode stumbles?
>
> If I could summarize what Jason says here, it might be:
>
> iMode leads because of
> 1. good marketing
> 2. NTT's positional strength
>
> WAP lags (so far) because of
> 1. (weak) WML learning curve
> 2. (weak) lack of content
> 3. (stronger) WAP standards development delays
> 4. (stronger) use costs
> 5. (stronger, but not in Japan) phone turnover costs
>
> What I like about this analysis, however much I might question
> the weighting of factors, is that it is recognizes so many factors.
> They are not completely independent factors, of course - part of
> NTT's "good marketing" was, arguably, "lowest-common-denominator
> technology choice (HTML base)", for example. But that's not so
> important, I think. The real lesson is that when something
> remarkable happens, it's a good idea to resist the temptation to fix
> on some single cause for that singular event - if anything, singular
> events are more often cominatorial in nature than otherwise.
>
> To focus on one factor, however:
>
> It's interesting that one of the more dramatic differences is in
> turnover costs. In the states (a few years ago) I found myself
> locked into a service contract ($300 exit clause) for longer than
> the compatible rechargers for my phone were in stock. And
> the supplied recharger broke after the warranty expired. I finally
> cobbled something together from a car-cigarette-lighter-compatible
> plug, plus a wall-plug-to-cigarette-lighter adapter. Didn't follow that?
> Never mind....the point is, the Art of the (Mobile) Deal in the U.S.
> seemed at that time to be mostly about slowing things
> down. And ensuring a profit today, not tomorrow.
>
> You can't have high turnover in that high-profit
> scenario.
>
> In Japan, by contrast, they practically pride themselves on
> speedy iteration on electronic gadgets, and damn the cost. I once
> met a corporate VP here who was convinced that Japan
> would break the automatic natural-language translation
> barrier sooner than any country in the West, because (could
> I make this up?) Japan could iterate on electronic gadgets
> faster than Western software companies could get software
> product releases out. Ridiculous reasoning, yes, but highly
> illustrative of a key attitude.
>
> In the last few weeks, I've met several chip designers involved
> in substrate technologies for handsets, and they all say the
> same thing: their (Japanese) company is not making any money
> selling handsets. They are all focused on potential, right
> now, not profitability. Profit is about covering past and
> future costs of doing business, and profit is what these companies
> have decided to forgo for the moment. They wouldn't do this
> without reason.
>
> This situation compels the question: what makes these
> electronics manufacturers so sure that there *is* a big
> win out there? Or at least, not too much of a loss? In
> this, I think they feel assured that NTT is on the side
> of any winners, at least domestically. And that doesn't
> seem out of character in the least.
>
> NTT is doing what it does best: providing market stability
> and long-term profit assurance for its equipment suppliers
> and other dependents.
>
> Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers are doing
> what *they* do best: short product cycles.
>
> Very Japanese, you must admit.
>
> Michael Turner
> www.idiom.com/~turner
> leap@gol.com
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <jason.c.freedman@ac.com>
> To: <keitai-l@appelsiini.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2000 2:46 PM
> Subject: (keitai-l) Re: New member/i-mode stumbles?
>
> [ Excessive quoting deleted by moderator ]
>
>
>
Received on Wed Aug 16 21:00:24 2000