On 2007/02/08, at 12:12, <ariste@gol.com> <ariste@gol.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> About a year and a half ago I made a rough prototype to translate
> emoji
> mail and optimize image sizes/formats between the various carriers and
> handsets. I found that Docomo changes emoji to the "=" sign on their
> end, and there isn't really any way to receive the actual character
> code (that I could find). I encountered no such problems with any of
> the other carriers.... only Docomo was for lack of a better way to say
> it, "uncooperative".
In my view (we explain this in more detail in our imode report:
http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/imode/ )
emoji are one of the competitive tools which Japan's mobile operators
use to compete.
The approach in Japan to this issue is maybe different than in the
GSM world, where there is more emphasis on interoperability and
standards.
The issue is here because DoCoMo has the dominating market share
they have proportionally less outgoing emails to competing operators,
and therefore less interest to cooperate with the smaller operators.
On the other hand the smaller operators have more incentive.
KDDI/AU only recently created interoperability for it's emoji.
The commercial incentives are opposite for KDDI/AU and DoCoMo.
Same is true for on-system flat rate voice. Here the incentives to
introduce is for the small operators, because they have proportionally
much less on-system communications, and therefor its easier for them
to introduce flat on-system rates. Thats why Vodafone could introduce
the love-teikaku, while DoCoMo did not do this.
Maybe this helps those of you not in Japan a bit to understand more
about
the background of why things are as they are in Japan.
General disclaimer: I am only the messenger trying to explain what's
going on in Japan... so please no religious wars...
Gerhard
http://fasol.com/
> I haven't looked at this recently, and it may
> have changed somewhat in the intervening year and a half, but for what
> it's worth.
>
> Steve
Received on Thu Feb 8 08:13:52 2007