1st Anniversary Event for Windows Mobile Phones in Japan

Microsoft Japan today kicked off a 2 day event in Marunouchi, the heart of Tokyo's business district, to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of Windows mobile phones in Japan. The event does mark an important milestone. From zero to three of four of Japan's main carriers with Windows Mobile devices in just one year. The NTT DoCoMo presenter commented that when he saw a Windows Mobile device in Redmond just a few years ago he never imagined he would one day be in Japan talking abut Windows Mobile phones. Willcom, NTT DoCoMo and Softbank all had booths showing off their devices. There were also a few applications on show which marks a revival in the interest of software developers after the death of the PDA market in Japan in 2004-2005 which I'm sure many of them lost out from.

The event marked another turning point in Microsoft's attempts to market Windows Mobile devices to a wider audience. To date, the power users and the buzz have done most of the marketing with little in the way of campaigns or events. Outside the booth area, staff were passing out information packs to passers by. As I walked by listening to conversations a common scenario was one out of a group of businessmen explaining Windows Mobile to the others, "It's like a small PC, you can do your email, browse the web and check office documents". Others uttered the phrase 'Windows keitai ???' in a puzzled tone. (Keitai is used in a similar way 'mobile' is used in English. By using the term windows keitai, Microsoft will likely find t easier to market Windows Mobile devices in Japan. Windows Keitai Fan happens to be the name of the top web site dedicated to Windows Mobile devices in Japan and is run by the people behind Windows CE Fan which has been around since the early days of Microsoft PDAs in the 90's.

The good news for Windows Mobile fans in Japan, Microsoft said they plan to release different form factors and have a total of 10 devices (but still 3 carriers) on the market in 2007. Lot's to look forward to.

More photos on Flickr from Kastuo2006.