----- Original Message -----
From: <NYoung@jup.com>
> i have been torturing myself with trying to figure out how this deal
> benefits NTTDoCoMo:
> any thoughts or responses to below?
>
I see three goals:
i) international content (esp. the TimeWarner resources) when they take
iMode abroad
ii) customer base - AOL being the largest ISP brings a large number of
potential users to the wireless arena.
iii) money - notice the contract was with AOL Japan and not AOL proper. NTT
has been on a shopping spree of late buying into and forming partnerships in
Asia, Europe, and NA of late. Needs to stock the coffers again. AOLJ is
still private; bring them to an IPO, and reap 42% of the gains.
I don't think they (NTT) give a darn about offering AOLJ's content it their
users; like you said they already have a raft of content providers for
Japanese imode users, all paying 9% to NTT, and AOLJ's lackluster numbers
pale in comparison with those of Nifty Serve and BigGlobe - if NTT was
looking for content for Japan, they likely would have chosen one of those
(then again maybe they tried to...)
Sean
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Received on Fri Sep 29 15:04:37 2000