9th
NTT DoCoMo in the American Market - A Positive Spin
News broke this week that NTT DoCoMo are considering plans to enter the U.S. market as a MVNO as early as 2010, and finally bring its i-mode service to America. MVNO’s are Mobile Virtual Network Operators that sell their own service plans and handsets but piggyback on another carriers network. It seems that DoCoMo is contemplating leasing network capacity from either T-Mobile USA or AT&T.
Many analysts consider DoCoMo’s move to be too little too late and that DoCoMo should have moved in on the American market during the days when their i-mode mobile internet service was leagues ahead of any user experience available in the U.S. While I agree that due to the timing of this late entry into the American market DoCoMo will face an uphill battle, I also believe that DoCoMo is still in a position to make an impact on the U.S. market.
Obviously there are countless decisions and business strategies DoCoMo will consider and follow to ensure successful entry into the American market, but from a mobile application developers point of view here are a few things I believe DoCoMo should consider:
Launch an AppStore
International users have become used to the idea of a central location from which to browse and download applications for their devices, be it the Android Market or Apple AppStore . i-mode will not survive in the international market if users are left to scour the internet for their applications. In addition to this an AppStore will attract developers to DoCoMo’s platform as it will finally give J2ME developers (who make the switch to DoJa) an outlet through which to conveniently sell their applications.
In the west users increasingly expect applications to come from an AppStore, without one DoCoMo will be doomed to failure.
Leverage existing applications
Over the last 10 years Japanese developers have been busy developing countless applications for the Japanese market and literally hundreds of thousands of games, applications and utilities already exist for the platform. Unfortunately the overriding majority of the are in Japanese.
DoCoMo needs to encourage, even partner with, application developers such as G-Mode, and GameLoft etc. to begin localizing their back catalogs of DoJa software for the American market. On launch day DoCoMo could literally have thousands of exceptionally quality applications ready for download by eager users via their AppStore.
Attract developers
Millions of Java developers out there are eager to begin mobile development. They’ve seen what can be done on mobile platforms such as the iPhone and want part of the action, but the lack of an established, unfragmented platform is deterring most from entering the mobile Java space.
Developing i-mode applications is by no means a difficult task for an experienced J2ME developer, and even a relatively new Java developer can be up and running developing i-applis relatively quickly. DoCoMo must stress to developers that DoJa applications, once developed, will run on any DoCoMo handset, guaranteed, unlike the situation with J2ME where due to device fragmentation a single application has to be ported to numerous handsets.
I believe that coupling write once run anywhere applications with an AppStore, that allows event he smallest of developers to earn revenue from their applications, will attract developers to the platform as there currently exists no AppStore for J2ME developers who are eager to sell their applications.
DoCoMo must, and surely can, entice developers to its platform by stressing that it truly is write once run anywhere and by providing them with a platform from which they can easily sell their products.
Refine handset designs
Unfortunately American users don’t see small, clam-shell devices without qwerty keyboards and big touch sensitive screens as smart phones. The term smart phone never took off in Japan due to the fact that since the launch of i-mode there have been no dumb phones, they’re all smart.
To overcome this image problem DoCoMo may find it beneficial to develop a physical design more suited to the market they’re entering.
Alternatively DoCoMo may choose not to be drawn into competition under the smart phone banner which would mean being constantly compared to iPhone and Android devices. They may decide to compete on the regular cellphone level but offer a product on that level with all the capabilities a user would expect from a smart phone.
In conclusion, DoCoMo have been providing an exceptional mobile internet experience to Japanese users for a decade. They have an established platform of hardware, software, development tools, API’s and documentation and a track record of delivering quality, highly advanced, handsets to the hands of users. While the timing of their entry into the US market comes much later than what would be considered optimal I believe that through hard work and adaptation to the American marketplace there exists a market for DoCoMo’s handsets in the U.S.
Then again, I’m an optimist, and always will be.
If your keen to take a look at DoJa Development you can download the DoJa SDK and documentation via the links under DoCoMo to the right of this article.
