Japan’s largest mobile operator NTT DoCoMo announced at their seasonal press conference that it would launch an LTE (long-term evolution) service called Xi[J] (pronounced as “crossy”) on Christmas eve of this year in Japan’s highly populated areas of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya.   LTE is collectively known as 3.9G mobile technology standard that allows you to gain an Internet access at much faster speed.   NTT DoCoMo’s LTE service enables 37.5Mbps (downlink) in the areas and 75Mbps inside selected buildings, which is 5 to 10 times faster than HSDPA, the mobile broadband technology that is mostly used in this country at this time.

Meanwhile, Emobile[J], a mobile broadband service provider comparatively focusing on serving high-speed data transmission needs, had been planning to launch 42Mbps (downlink) service this month, which is twice faster than their current line-ups, but it was rescheduled to next month because technical problems were found on software and hardware they’ll provide to the users subscribing to the new service.   Emobile’s faster service is based on DC-HSDPA which is currently used and not a new one, and that makes them possible to launch the new service in more cities than NTT DoCoMo.   Emobile expects to start it in 31 cities nationwide in the coming six months and to cover almost 46% of where their users are located.

Furthermore, Softbank Mobile, the country’s third (sometimes, it’s second) largest mobile operator, also unveiled it would launch a mobile broadband service called Ultra Speed[J] next February, which is enhanced based on the DC-HSDPA technology and enables 42Mbps data connection(downlink).   The fastest one among Japan’s mobile broadband services that are currently in operation is UQ WiMAX[J], which enables 40Mbps connection(downlink).  When Emobile and Softbank start their new services, UQ WiMAX will be defeated in terms of the highest possible data connection speed in spite of its most advanced technology.

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Tags: Japan, New Service, News, Technology by Masaru IKEDA
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Mixi, one of Japan’s biggest social networking services, which is the most similar with Facebook among three, announced their new smartphone application plan with the third largest cellphone carrier Softbank Mobile.

The trademarked “SocialPhone” is an Android application service which utilizes phone data like phone number data with Mixi’s social graphs. The service is planned to launch February 2011 on Android phones for Softbank Mobile. Some got the app pre-installed, others will be supported via Android Market.

According to the Mixi’s release [J], at the launch there will be the following features provided;

• Integrated status display of Mixi Voice(microblog), photo, calendar, diary, friends’ profile/voice/diary, Mixi Check(Like), photo.
• Sync between smartphone’s phone directory and Mixi’s friends network, to enable phone and messaging to your friend on the single app

There are more features planned later;

• MyMiku(friends) request by phone number on your phone directory
• MyMiku(friends) request just by putting your supported phones close
• set your friend’s photo automatically to your wallpaper
• show your friend’s Check-in location on map, to find your friends real time

The app may be the same one which was given to a single loyal developer 3 weeks ago on Mixi-customized Nexus One.

Softbank Mobile is Japan’s No.3 carrier, but selling iPhone exclusively, they also actively offer several Android smartphones.

Working with phone function and directory is rather weak point for Japanese feature phones. Although Japanese app stores got great success since 2001, all carriers restricted their API so app-to-call or call-to-app functions are very limited. That is the advantage of latest “smartphones”, which were designed years later. All Mixi/Gree/Mobage-Town are happy with feature phones user, but are also preparing smart phone site/app for near future when smart phone will go over current few percent share.

Technically, it sounds possible for Mixi to provide the Android application for No.1 Docomo and No.2 KDDI au, but they seemed to have to begin only with Softbank Mobile, and the release date is in 3 months ahead.

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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Wall Street Journal’s blog All Things Digital(ATD) reported that Yahoo! Japan is going to announce that they will use Google Search as its search backend, switching from their customized Yahoo! Search Technology(YST).

At this point, there are no Japanese media reported this rumour, except Bloomberg Japanese [J] which just refers All Things Digital.

Until more info arrives, here we Asiajin add some related info ATD missed here.

If Google (GOOG) and Yahoo Japan join together, the pair will control almost the entire market share of search in the Japanese market.

On PC, it is true. However, on mobile search the No.1 cellphone carrier NTT Docomo, boasts 50% market-share, recently switched their mobile search engine from Google Mobile Search to Goo Mobile Search in May. Goo is a long running Japanese original search engine run by another NTT group company.

As mobile web is fairly big and better paved for money leviers in Japan, it is not ignorable.

No. 2 KDDI au is using Google and No.3 Softbank Mobile using (of course) Yahoo! Japan so those two are likely to use Google if the rumour is true.

Coincidentally, Bing just entered the Japan market with its branded search, but it has only a small share there.

Bing Japan just removed “Beta” this month. Their search market share is around few percent.

And, ironically, Yahoo Japan’s Inoue said in an interview in January with a Japanese news organization that he was not impressed with some other Google services, such as its Street View mapping service.

Check our article to cover Inoue’s comments. “Google Is Nothing Special” Yahoo! Japan President Brags Their Supremacy

if Yahoo Japan and Google do buddy up, it’s clear that Microsoft will likely try to block the deal from gaining regulatory approval in Japan, much in the same way it did successfully when Google tried to enter into a deal with Yahoo in the U.S. in 2008.

Microsoft K.K. (will be renamed with “Microsoft Japan” next year) would try. But in Japan, antitrust law and its enforcement are not so strong as the one in USA. Japanese politics are also rather indifferent to the internet industry (when you comparing with manufacturing like cars and electronics).

Yahoo! Japan, which traffic is ranked at 12th in the world only with its activities inside Japan (Alexa), is big enough to keep to maintain their YST variant by their size of company, however, Microsoft-US Yahoo! deal takes away development power from US side of their partner and that may make Inoue, and Masayoshi Son (Softbank CEO) reconsider that keeping Japanese-only search engine only for Japanese market by themselves will be burden, if the rumour is true. (We still haven’t heard any other news besides the original ATD one yet)

[Update] Nikkei also covered at 10:29 (JST). But no new things, no source.

[Update] Google announces the alliance on their official Japanese blog.

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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Japanese outplacement firm Intelligence [J] released their research of what companies people want to join next [J], done on 5,000 of office workers between age 25 to 34.

On the ranking, Google jumped up from 2009′s third position because of good feeling to their “innovation” and “potential”.

# Oriental Land is a company who runs Tokyo Disney Land/Sea.

Another software/web companies

The top listed 10 did not change, but at 11th, Apple Japan is ranked up from 2009′s 33rd, which is likely by a lot of iPhone/iPad exposure on news and ads by Softbank.

As you notice, Yahoo! Japan, which is much stronger than Google Japan here, is quite unpopular as a working place in compare. Amazon Japan also gets distanced from its rival Rakuten from the point of view of potential workers’ popularity.

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Press release [J]

Tags: Japan, Trend by Akky Akimoto
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Although Apple’s digital publishing service iBookstore on iPad has been doing well in US, like other countries it is not really ready for Japanese iPad users. It is considered to take time to realize as local publishers are more conservative to collaborate.

Sotftbank’s 100% subsidiary Viewn [J], which had been introduced by CEO Masayoshi Son, launched today on June 1st, is expected to fill in the hole for users’ demand for reading texts on new iPad in Japan.

Son announced that Viewn offers a package of 31 popular Japanese magazines for iPad in flat rate $5.00 per month [J]. The subscription fee looks like set by size of screens on Softbank Mobile cellphones.

iPad app can be downloaded from this page if your iTunes Store’s country is Japan.

Hype

The announced package includes really big names, a major newspaper Mainichi, a major TV network Nippon TV news, weekly magazines like Friday, AERA, Asahi, President, Economist Japanese version, fashion magazines and travel guidebook series Chikyu no Arukikata (like Lonely Planet in Japan), etc.

Every single magazine costs more than US$3.00 so it surprised Japanese websphere. Twitter was filled up with admiration tone for Son’s account @masason.

Server trouble

However, people rushed at the service launch, 0 a.m. June 1st, saw the iPad/iPhone app never comes back to show magazine covers for an hour.

Son tweeted that they are installing 10 times more servers [J] to solve the issue. Then gave up and Viewn announced temporal pause of service [J].

Read as much as you like, but…

Also, few lucky users who could read into each magazines “table of contents” found that not all pages are available on the package. A popular tech blogger Tsuruaki Yukawa took Weekly Diamond’s toc as sample and tells it provides only part 1 and 2 out of 5 sections feature story [J].

He showed disappointment that the service is kind of “sample” to be guided for their original paper version. Majority seem to agree it and the initial explanation was exaggerated.

Viewn’s FAQ on website [J] says “On most magazines, main articles will be delivered step-by-step from paper one’s publish date”, “You may browse magazines in the same layout as original. How much you can read are varied on each magazine”.

On Japanese websphere, there are also another users’ voice that this is kind of new challenge so user should not bash Viewn and support publishers will allow more contents online.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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