the DoCoMo "short mail" service is in no way comparable to SMS and
it was a failure. the first year of i-mode's success was mainly
the success of the (technically ill-designed) i-mode mail service
which is comparable to the SMS boom in Europe from the market point
of view. it's also similar to the success of i-shot -- copying
an already popular service by the rivals (in both cases, J-Phone).
for your reference, the DoCoMo's flat "short mail" service was:
- a solution designed for fixed phones, inband data
- maximum 100 bytes (50 kanji)
- 20 messages storage, for 72 hours
- no retry (can't call SMS without retry)
- charged as voice call, minimum JPY 5 yen
it was one of the reasons why DoCoMo deadly needed i-mode to
compete with au/KDDI and J-Phone in 1998. DoCoMo was loosing
market share quickly, and they had no chance with "short mail".
cheers,
Ken
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Received on Thu Jul 31 14:34:09 2003