(keitai-l) Re: Nokia and Motorola to enter the Japanese market with Vodafone KK

From: Curt Sampson <cjs_at_cynic.net>
Date: 12/03/03
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.58.0312031638020.18468@angelic-vtfw.cvpn.cynic.net>
On Wed, 3 Dec 2003 Martyn_Williams@idg.com wrote:

> I'm not saying such features are not important but look at the success of
> Au's Infobar. That's got no QVGA and a 300,000 pixel camera but is selling
> well from what I hear.

I'm not surprised. It's so amazingly cool, not to mention light, that
I'm tempted to trade in my 505i for one. (Only tempted, I don't think
that I could go that far.)

But that's a special case of really neat design. If you're going to have
a more ordinary-looking and -weighing phone, I think you need the features.

I agree that this stuff can be added by Nokia, but we'll see how well
they can actually execute it. I've seen the smartphones and whatnot, and
while they have some of the features of my Japanese keitai, and others
are easily added, they don't have the same nice "feel."

> It's big selling point is design. If there's one truth about Japanese
> handsets its that they all, well almost all, look virtually the same.

True.

> Motorola has been rolling out some good looking phones, mostly in South
> Korea and other Asian markets, and there are some nice handsets from
> Samsung, Sony Ericsson (non-Japan) and Siemens so perhaps the entry of
> foreign players will stir up the market a bit, especially for people for
> whom design is important.

None of the Motorola or Nokia phones I've seen can begin to compare to
the Au Infobar in terms of design, which was why I was assuming that
they'd be competing on features.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson  <cjs_at_cynic.net>   +81 90 7737 2974   http://www.NetBSD.org
    Don't you know, in this new Dark Age, we're all light.  --XTC
Received on Wed Dec 3 09:45:06 2003