NTT DoCoMo Research Articles

The mobile revolution: the making of mobile services worldwide

As more and more people use mobile handsets, a revolution is taking place in computing and telecommunications. Two extraordinary industries the Internet and mobile communications are converging. But this is just the beginning. As the third industry - consumer electronics - and the fourth - media and entertainment - join in, changes in consumer markets are inevitable, as evidenced by the explosive growth of mobile media, games and entertainment. In The Mobile Revolution, the senior executives of the world's leading mobile vendors, operators, service providers, software giants, chip kings, media and entertainment conglomerates, publishers, music moguls and brand marketers reveal their secrets and strategies. Nokia, Motorola, Ericsson, Qualcomm, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom, Verizon Wireless, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, RealNetworks, Yahoo, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, EMI, BMI, BMG, IFPI, CNN, ABC, Disney, Fox, Sony, Warner Music and Universal are just a few of the names that feature. As a result, the book abounds with inside stories of great industry successes (and equally great flops!) as the narrative shifts constantly between the major cities of several continents - from Helsinki and Stockholm, London and Frankfurt, Tokyo and Seoul, Beijing and Singapore, New York City and Los Angeles, to Bangalore and Moscow. The Mobile Revolution is about the making of mobile markets and services worldwide, with a firm emphasis on innovation. It is not just another account of technology innovation; rather it examines the rise of mobile services in the context of maturing and emerging mobile markets.

Tokyo power quake-proofs its grid control system

NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan's largest mobile phone company, has successfully transmitted 2.5 Gb/s of packet data in a downlink to a vehicle moving at 20 km/hr. DoCoMo owed its success to using bandwidth more efficiently and partly to bumping up two key technologies: multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) and quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM). Despite the success, DoCoMo realizes that they still have to face many difficult challenges in the development phase and in commercializing the system. In addition to the sheer size of the equipment being used to carry out the recent tests, 4G systems need a new infrastructure to support it. Nevertheless, 4G has the potential to provide a rich multimedia experience, including realistic videoconferencing, interactive online gaming, and high definition video

The development of 3G in Japan and Taiwan

With the arrival of NTT DoCoMo's FOMA services in October 2001, the world has turned its attention to the 3G mobile system. In this study, we will analyse and compare the 3G industries in Japan and Taiwan using Porter's modified framework of five forces (bargaining power of suppliers, complementors, bargaining power of buyers, rivalry among existing competitors, threats of new entrants, threats of substitutes). Through a comparison of Japan's and Taiwan's 3G industries, we derived six tentative implications.

Innovation and knowledge creation through leadership-based strategic community: Case study on high-tech company in Japan

In this paper, the author wishes to present a basic framework in which the integration of various organizational boundaries between heterogeneous organizations both inside and outside a corporation creates new knowledge. This paper describes a detailed case study involving joint new product and service development of a mobile multimedia system by NTT DoCoMo, a mobile communication carrier in Japan, and Mitsubishi Electric, a large electrical appliances manufacturer. This case study illustrates the dynamism in which new knowledge is created by simultaneously promoting the forming of a horizontally integrated network among strategic communities between the two corporations including customers and a vertically integrated network among strategic communities with the corporation. The synthesizing capability of the leadership-based strategic communities comprising leaders inside the networked strategic communities enabled NTT DoCoMo and Mitsubishi Electric to build new business models aimed at customers and achieve successful new product and service development.

Innovating business strategies through strategic communities

PurposeReviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approachThis briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.FindingsLarge companies and corporations are increasingly required to adapt their own internal methods of knowledge creation, to keep up with the rapid development of their products and their competitors. This adaptation, as Mitsuru Kodama argues in his case study of NTT DoCoMo, involves the creation of partnership‐based, inter‐organizational collaboration with other firms, corporations and customers.Practical implicationsProvides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.Originality/valueThe briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

Diffusion, substitution and competition dynamism inside the ICT market: The case of Japan

Under the new information society paradigm that emerged in the 1990s, contrary to its conspicuous achievement as an industrial society, Japan is experiencing a vicious cycle between non-elastic institutions and insufficient utilization of the potential benefits of information and communication technology (ICT). However, a dramatic deployment of mobile telephones with Internet access service such as NTT DoCoMo's i-mode service in the late 1990s provides encouragement that, once the potential is exploited, Japan's institutional systems can effectively stimulate the self-propagating nature of ICT. The rapid deployment of Internet Protocol (IP) mobile service in Japan can be attributed to worldwide advances in the utilization of personal computers (PCs) and the Internet. Thus, a complex technology web triggered by the dramatic advancement of PCs and the Internet and co-evolving diffusion, substitution and competition dynamism has emerged in the global ICT market, particularly in Japan's mobile communication business. The above observations prompt the hypothetical view that, despite a lack of institutional elasticity, recent advances in Japan's IP mobile service deployment can be attributed to a co-evolutionary dynamism between diffusion, substitution and competition inside the ICT market. Thus, policy questions could be how to create such a co-evolutionary dynamism by means of ICT innovation, enriched functions, reduced price and competitive environment. In order to demonstrate the foregoing hypothesis, an empirical analysis of the mechanism co-evolving diffusion, substitution and competition dynamism inside Japan's ICT market is attempted by utilizing four types of diffusion models identical to respective diffusion dynamics.

Innovation through networked strategic communities: case study on NTT DoCoMo

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify key factors for generating new knowledge creation in the fields of high tech requiring the integration of a variety of technologies and business models.Design/methodology/approach – The case study will center on NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile communications carrier, where the author has had extensive experience in service development. The author has collected rich data related to development processes and uses the grounded theory‐based approach to analyze seven concepts and the cause and effect relationships among them.Findings – In a short period of time, a strategic team at DoCoMo formed strategic communities (SCs) outside the company including customers, and then formed a network that transcended the SCs' boundaries.Orginality/value – The synthesizing capability of the leadership‐based SCs comprising community leaders inside the networked SCs enabled DoCoMo to build new business models aimed at customers and achieve successful new product and service development ahead of its competitors.

Coordinating the early commercialization of general purpose technologies: The case of mobile data communications

SummaryThis paper argues that mobile data communications is a fairly typical case of a general purpose technology (GPT), since it (1) is used in a wide range of applications, (2) exhibits rapid and persistent performance improvements and (3) strong innovational complementarities with interrelated coordination problems. However, (4) diffusion has been slower than expected so far. The paper focuses on the early slow developments of the Swedish Mobitex system, the recent failure of WAP in Europe and contrasts it with the successful launch of Mobile Internet in Japan. As predicted by the literature, mobile data communications have (so far) fared better in Japan where a dominant player (NTT DoCoMo’s) internalized coordination. However, since applications are not known beforehand, market experimentation is also called for. If coord– ination can take place hrough standardized interfaces, then decentralized networks can have an advantage since such networks can produce a more rapid rate of experimentation. Thus, finding a balance between firm internal coordination and market mechanisms, possibly through standardization of platforms, seems to be the way forward for the industry.

Here comes the wallet phone [wireless credit card

This paper discusses NTT DoCoMo's latest offering, the wireless credit card. DoCoMo, Japan's largest cellphone system operator, is working with major travel and banking organizations to extend the reach of its e-wallet service. These wallet phones are equipped with a wireless smart card chip, called FeliCa, and can be used to make electronic purchases at stores or vending machines, act as boarding passes on certain domestic flights, and authorize entry through corporate security doors. A year after DoCoMo introduced the e-wallet, the company has shipped about 6 million of the handsets. The company is expected to ship about 15 million handsets by the end of 2006.

1B01 Dilemma in Innovation : the Case of 3G Mobile at KDDI and NTT DoCoMo

1B01 Dilemma in Innovation : the Case of 3G Mobile at KDDI and NTT DoCoMo

ICT Investments and Electronic Commerce Initiatives in ASEAN

ICT Investments and Electronic Commerce Initiatives in ASEAN

Welcome to Europe [i-mode

The Japanese operator that deciphered how to marry successfully the worlds of mobile telephony and the Internet is trying to replicate the experience in Europe. NTT DoCoMo launched its completely new service, i-mode, in Japan five years ago, and one year had 4 million paying customers. This revolutionary service allows users to access information and entertainment Web sites specifically designed for the mobile phone environment. Today, it has 40 million subscribers and a content community that has developed over 75,000 Web sites. In 2002, i-mode services were launched in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium and France, and, in 2003, in Spain and Italy. Take-up has not been as rapid as in Japan. The article discusses the business model and looks at the prospects for the service.

Strategic community‐based theory of firms: case study of dialectical management at NTT DoCoMo

AbstractThe greatest issue that leading corporations are facing in the twenty‐first century is how they can achieve innovation in a speedy yet reliable manner. For example, on one side of this double‐faceted issue is speed in introducing innovative new products and services to market ahead of the competition, while on the other side is expansion of the market for these products and services. To attain success, leading companies need to balance a variety of paradoxes both inside and outside the organization and exercise their practical abilities. In this paper, the author discusses a case of innovation by NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (DoCoMo), in becoming the first leading mobile telecommunications carrier in the world to offer mobile Internet services, and analyzes this case from the viewpoint of the paradox perspective on organizational performance. In this case, a leadership‐based strategic community uses the practical method of dialectical management that includes top management to merge and integrate the community competences of an existing traditional community infrastructure with a new, creative community infrastructure and promote an emergent yet deliberate integrative strategy. With the integrative competences generated by this leadership‐based strategic community, DoCoMo balances paradoxes such as creativity and efficiency to achieve innovations in creating and propagating new services. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sony and DoCoMo join forces in FeliCa joint venture

Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony Corporation and NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s biggest mobile network operator, have announced a joint venture to develop new services based on mobile phones equipped with Sony’s contactless smart card technology FeliCa. The technology will allow consumers to charge their phones with credit and then electronically pay for products and services. Visit www.compseconline.com for the latest computer security industry news

New portfolio & increased sales

NTT DoCoMo Inc, the world’s second_largest wireless carrier after Vodafone, said today that it earned ¥197bn ($1.6 bn) in the three months to June, thanks to a new portfolio of handsets with cameras and growing demand for high_speed phone service. DoCoMo’s subsidies to manufacturers that develop 3G handsets brought down the retail price, increasing sales. Subscriptions for the service have almost doubled in the last four months, to more than 658,000. A new line of 505i handsets also slowed competitors. DoCoMo’s share of Japan’s mobile phone market remains high at 57.5% New handsets helped generate ¥1.25 trillion ($10.4bn) in revenue during the quarter. This is a short news story only. Visit www.three-fives.com for the latest advanced semiconductor industry news.

A perspective an the evolution of mobile communications

This article outlines the current state of mobile communications and presents some of the future directions in research and development from the perspective of NTT DoCoMo with special emphasis on the market in Japan. It first describes the directions in which mobile communications are expected to forge ahead in the future, and the service implementation strategies they could employ. Then it describes an example of mobile multimedia services and present an outline of the Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access (FOMA), which is a service based on the 3G mobile communications system called International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT2000). This is followed by an overview of our R&D approach to 4G systems, which constitute mobile communications systems of the future, and the profile of technologies to make these happen. Finally, it reviews our approach to future technologies that are expected to be realized in 4G and subsequent systems, and illustrate it with an example of a research project.

Strategic community-based theory of firms: Case study of NTT DoCoMo

This paper presents a case study of how over the last three years a large, traditional corporation simultaneously created new service markets and established a dominant position in the competitive mobile internet business field in Japan. The corporation accepted a new emergent organizational body that has an entrepreneurial spirit and consists of different types of personnel, then the company continuously promoted emergent and entrepreneurial strategies. At the same time, to in an attempt to implement strategic innovation the company integrated the above strategies with deliberate strategies practiced by the existing traditional line organizational body. Through a case study, this paper discusses the factors for success in the course of achieving strategic innovation in the mobile internet business field, i.e. the creation of a new market, through intentionally and strategically having and furthermore integrating paradoxical organizations and strategies under a single corporate umbrella.

3G strategy at Nokia, NTT DoCoMo and AT&T

A few years on from the collapse of the telecommunications industry and the dust has well and truly settled. Mobile communication organizations across the globe have come to terms with saturated markets and reduced profit margins. As a result, new strategies are emerging and restructures imminent, all with the focus firmly on one thing: 3G.

Creating a firm self-propagating function for advanced innovation-oriented projects: lessons from ERP

Under the new paradigm of an information society, Japan is experiencing a vicious cycle between non-elastic institutions and insufficient utilization of the potential benefits of IT that impedes the structural change efforts of firms. In parallel with this, the advanced innovation-oriented projects of firms are undergoing a structural change. However, a dramatic deployment of i-mode service (NTT DoCoMo’s mobile Internet access service) in the late 1990s provides encouragement that, once the potential is exploited, Japan’s institutional systems can effectively stimulate the self-propagating nature of IT through dynamic interaction with it. The advancement of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software in a co-evolutional way between convergence for vendor strength and divergence for satisfying diversified customer base demonstrates a similar expectation. This expectation relates to a business field in which the advanced innovation-oriented projects of firms under a new paradigm can be expected to develop in the process of embodying a self-propagating function. Prompted by this demonstration, this paper on the basis of a comparative empirical analysis of the interaction between a software vendor (ERP firm) and ERP customers with different business models towards creating a self-propagating structure based on a co-evolutional process between internal motivation of the vendor and external expectations raised by customers, attempts to identify key conditions essential to creating a self-propagating structure for advanced innovation-oriented projects of firms.

Developing mobile wireless applications

The deck-of-cards metaphor underlies nearly all content developed for mobile wireless technologies. Standard, high-level application-development technologies, which are available for most major hardware platforms, ease this development task because they are optimized for the severe restrictions on a mobile device's screen size, processing power, and battery life. We discuss three major application-development technologies: the wireless application protocol (WAP), NTT DoCoMo's i-mode, and Sun's Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). Each lets developers create content for the current and upcoming generation of mobile wireless devices.