BlackBerry? No Japanese gadget freak has shown the slightest interest in this small mail terminal... er, information terminal, so far. Even the business people who have a lot of dealings wύth American joints are not very enthusiastic. Simply, everybody feels sort of pity for Americans who proudly show around their BlackBerries as the most classy business tool.

"Poor people! Since their K-tai system is so primitive and hopeless, they have to compromise with that toy-like BlackBerry thing. It hasn't got even a camera in it!"

Sure, the cheapest Japanese K-tai terminal can do hundreds more stunts with a lot smaller price tag. The only dubious merit of BlackBerry would be its teeny QWERTY keyboard of some 30 keys. But these days, K-tai terminals have average of 20 keys. Not that much difference anyway.

BlackBerry 8707h, the Stone-Axe. Some cavemen stick to this paleolithic tool, even when a shiny Swiss Army Knife is readily available.

Therefore, your Mobile Ojisan was quite surprised when NTT DoCoMo, the numero uno mobile operator in Japan, announced it would introduce the BlackBerry 8707h terminal to Japanese market. Who would buy this silly thing at all?

When I checked the press release carefully, I found out that DoCoMo had absolutely no intention to push this BlackBerry fiercely into the cut-throat retail market. It targeted only the corporate market with very narrowly defined customer base.

Obviously, some of the American business folks who had been transferred to Japan could not manage to acclimatize to Japanese K-tai terminals. It's quite understandable. Even your Mobile Ojisan sometimes feels an extreme awe for the newest K-tai terminal, and has to ask to his neighbor's daughter (primary school kid, she is!) how to use some of the new functions.

So, those poor Americans wanted to stick to their primitive BlackBerry even in Japan where absolutely everything should and could be done with a K-tai terminal. And it seems they pestered their boss enough about this. They, in turn, managed to annoy DoCoMo enough, I guess.

DoCoMo claimed that it had secured so far around 1,400 confirmed subscribers, mainly from foreign companies. Which way to think? 1) A new mobile service can be started with so few initial customers. 2) So many Luddites have a perverted affection for their stone-age gadget in the corporate world.

Using BlackBerry in Japan would not be very economical, either. Initial one-time membership will cost 5,985 yen (US$50), and monthly charge of 5,700 yen (US$48). Wait a minute, over this basic charge, you have to spit out a king's ransome for DoCoMo FOMA (3G WCDMA) subscription and its packet usage charge. Ah well, those corporate warriors would not care a bit about this outrageous daytime robbery, I guess.

Anyway, the DoCoMo BlackBerry service works for both WCDMA and GSM. So those businessmen can use DoCoMo BlackBerry outside of Japan, too.

DoCoMo definetely shows no interest to lure Japanese individual customers at all. Its 8707h terminal has no capability for Japanese Kanji input. Sure, its Web browser and mailer can show something like Kanji, but its font is so ridiculous that funny Kanji prints on those rip-off T-shirts sold in Bangkok streets look a hundred times more authentic.

Conclusion: DoCoMo BlackBerry service will be forever entombed as the one based on the smallest base of customers in history. Very amazing.

 

cheewee
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kaisei1
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