(keitai-l) Re: So, will i-mode repeat its early successes in the Europeanmarket?

Completely agree with Andrea here.  DoCoMo's strength is based on their
consumer oriented nature.  It understands what the consumer wants and what
will work.  Its success in Japan could very easily be ported to other
regions considering DoCoMo's attention to cultural and local details.  The
skeptics point to DoCoMo's knowledge of the market because it's playing in
its own market.  However that is exactly why it has purchased minor stakes
in telcos worldwide: to be able to provide interactive services that are
meaningful in their own cultural context, through the local telcos that know
their end-users best.  The negative view of the market coupled with the lack
of vision by analysts must be changed to a realistic, and not hyped up idea
of what we can expect from the wireless industry in the near future.


> So, will i-mode repeat its early successes in the European market?
>
> Highly unlikely, says Tim Sheedy, research analyst with International
Data
> Corp. 'The i-mode applications in Japan are generating real revenue,
and are
> a big selling point, but they won't necessarily translate to the
European
> market,' he says. One of the most popular applications in Japan is a
fishing
> simulation, which draws on data from shipping forecasts, and lets
users
> catch fish. A good catch means the user can upgrade his fishing tackle
for a
> better model. 'Some of these applications make me wonder what drugs
these
> people are taking,' he says. In addition, the developer community in
Europe
> has no experience with i-mode, and would have to start from scratch.
'All
> the programming instructions are in Japanese anyway, so most of the
> programmers in Europe would have no idea where to start,' Sheedy adds.
> (...)

Hmm, who is saying that i-mode in Europe has to have the same
applications running as in Japan? When DoCoMo launched i-mode in Japan,
they tried to imagine what consumers *here on this market* would like to
use. European operators (in coop with DoCoMo) could now do the same
thing -- just for the European market.

For programming in i-mode, a lot of the basic information is available
in English already, plus it shouldn't be that problem to translate the
remaining parts. Developing content for i-mode has been proven to be a
lot easier then for WAP in many ways, so programmers in Europe should
actually have it easier to switch to i-mode, especially if they already
have experience with web development.

My facit: Some of the facts Tim Sheedy mentioned might even be correct
(for example that the fishing game would not work in Europe) but they
are completely missing the points of what the i-mode model is really
about and how to localize and transport a service into a different
culture.

Cheers,
Andrea


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