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Buzz: Boys and Their Toys
Hi. My name's Peter and I'm addicted to the "i-mode"
By PETER McKILLOP
July
28, 2000
Web posted at 4:30 p.m. Hong Kong time, 4:30 a.m. EDT
While antitrust lawyers for the U.S. Department of Justice battle it out with that "old economy" computer giant in Washington, a new online monopoly is rising like a phoenix from the rubble of the Japanese economy. It's called "i-mode," and it is made by DoCoMo, the booming cell-phone division of NTT, the giant Japanese telco.
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The fight between the Justice Department and Microsoft is about an old platform, the desktop. What is happening in Japan is the emergence of a giant that dominates the newest computer platform: a mini desktop computer on your cell phone.
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For a monopoly to succeed, one must dominate the marketplace with a product that everyone feels they must have. NTT's i-mode does both. This is the greatest "killer app" since the invention of the computer. i-mode is leagues ahead of the world in developing this wireless access to the web, and is getting bigger and better by the day. Small, easy to use and fun, the i-mode has caught the hearts and imaginations of millions of Japanese. In less than two years, more than 10 million subscribers have become part of the i-mode world. Each day, another 50,000 subscribers tune in.
Anyone who has used one can quickly see why. Before our eyes, three of the greatest innovations of the telecom era -- a mobile phone, a Palm Pilot and a Walkman -- are converging into a "phone" that is the size of a cigarette pack. The i-mode is changing the way people access the Web, read newspapers, listen to music and schedule their days. I now find myself sitting in a traffic jam in Tokyo checking e-mails, reading the latest news from the Nikkei or Dow Jones, or listening to the jazz riff 'Take 5' by Stan Getz. Sure it's all a bit primitive; the "Take 5" is still a synthesized saxophone, but a huge jump from electronic Jingle Bells. And it's getting better. Trials have been completed and there are plans to launch a service that will allow i-mode users to download real music by the end of the year.
There is only one problem with i-mode. The emergence of a "killer app" in a captured market quickly creates a very powerful monopoly. And that is happening now in Japan. Let's say Yahoo!, or smaller wireless portal creators like the California-based MobileID, or for that matter giants like Nokia or Ericsson, want to compete in Japan with their microbrowsers. Well, fogettttaboutttitt. They have about as much chance as being a player in this market as competitors to Microsoft's Windows program did in the United States.
This leads to an interesting consumer dilemma. Clearly DoCoMo has developed a truly fantastic product. It works, it's affordable and it's fun. i-mode, of course, has its online competitors, like J-Phone. But it simply cannot compete with either the market penetration or the innovative firepower of the i-mode. So, as a free marketeer, I should be demanding competition to the mighty i-mode. As a consumer, I am so infatuated by this nifty device that I wonder whether its development could have occurred had it not been because of the de facto monopoly power of NTT. Guess I'll have to go to an i-mode chat room to see what others think.
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