DoCoMo to Offer Windows Mobile Phones by Fall 2006
Huge news for the smart phone/PDA phone market in Japan. Following in Willcom's footsteps NTT DoCoMo plan to offer Windows Mobile 5.0 handsets by fall 2006. It is unclear whether they will market Smartphones (i.e. more of a phone with PDA functionality) or PDA Phones (i.e. more of a PDA with phone functionality).
Given that they just signed the agreement with HTC it makes you wonder if this wasn't a knee jerk reaction in response to the staggering success of Willcom's W-ZERO3. DoCoMo's current PDA phone hardly made a ripple.
Whether this device is successful will really depend on whether DoCoMo offers flat rate data plans for the Windows Mobile devices. I feel they really have to and will do. It will also be interesting to see whether the device can access i-mode services. i-mode services are designed from the ground up for mobile, so although having access to the whole WWW from a smart phone is useful, having access to i-mode services is essential. i-mode services are not accessible from DoCoMo's current smart phone.
Other links to this news:
Pocket PC Thoughts
Geekzone
