DoCoMo targets businesses with Motorola handset

TOKYO -- Japan's largest mobile carrier has unveiled a high-end 3G (third-generation) mobile phone with several features aimed at business users, but lacking two of the carrier's trademark applications.

Free IT resource Virtualization Insights from Top Experts - Learn how virtualization gets real! Sponsored by Dell Free IT resource TechNet: More ways to know it, share it, and keep it running. Sponsored by Microsoft

NTT DoCoMo's M1000 handset, which will go on sale in Japan around June, is the result of 16 months' development work with Motorola. It is based on Motorola's A1000 smart phone handset that was introduced outside Japan last year. The new phone is designed to give users connectivity almost anywhere there is a wireless network, said Hozumi Tamura, director of DoCoMo's Product Department, in a news conference held in Tokyo on Thursday.

To this goal, the handset is compatible with both WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), and GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and has connectivity with Bluetooth short-range wireless networking technology, DoCoMo said.

The handset is also the first announced by a Japanese carrier that can connect to public 802.11b WLAN (wireless LAN) hotspots, a feature that will prove useful for corporate users who want to quickly download large files, Tamura said. WCDMA has a maximum transmission speed of 384Kbps compared to a maximum of 11Mbps for 801.11b WLAN.

The handset contains personal information management (PIM) software and can open Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files, DoCoMo said.

The 168-gram phone relies on a stylus and on-screen keyboard for information input rather than via a keypad. It includes a 2.9-inch, 208 pixel by 320 pixel resolution LCD screen, a full HTML browser, and a 1.3-megapixel camera.

But the M1000 lacks two of DoCoMo's trademark applications; the I-mode mobile Internet service, and the Felica contactless smart-card system, which enables phones to double as electronic cash and loyalty cards and to be used for functions such as airport check-in.

I-mode has been a prominent feature of DoCoMo's service since it was launched in 1999, and was instrumental in popularizing mobile Internet use in Japan. At the end of March 2005, 44 million of DoCoMo's 48.3 million subscribers had I-mode capable phones, according to the Telecommunications Carriers Association. DoCoMo has also been pushing the Felica service since 2004 and most of the carrier's new phones have the function.

With the M1000, DoCoMo is becoming serious about getting companies to buy phones for their employees, said Kirk Boodry, telecom analyst with Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (Japan) in Tokyo. In Japan, most mobile phones are bought by consumers for private use, with individuals choosing which of Japan's three carriers they subscribe to, he said.

"I-mode and Felica are consumer applications and consumers represent 90 percent of the market here and the corporate market has been given short shrift," he said.

If companies ask workers to switch to the M1000 and future models by DoCoMo, accounts departments can unify their billing and centralize accounting, so saving money, he said.

"For IT managers, not having I-mode and Felica is attractive because they want to control spending and access," Boodry said.