Willcom have announced that they will be officially announcing their new Windows Mobile 6 smart phone next Thursday June 7.
The flash site has been updated with some emotion invoking imagery to tempt us all. Small and fashionable seems to be the core message.
Microsoft will also officially announce Windows Mobile 6 to the press at MEDC on June 6.
Looking forward to some fun news next week.
Softbank today held a press conference and announced two new Windows Mobile 6 phones for the Japanese market:
The X01T marks a return to Windows Mobile device in Japan by Toshiba. Very similar in format (slide out keyboard) to the X01HT from HTC, but with a wide VGA screen. This the device for power users. It feels very solid and the keys are rounded in such a way that may make it better the the X01HT for typing. On sale from mid-August.
The X02HT is HTC's second device for Softbank It is a Windows Mobile (WM) Standard device (formerly called WM Smart Phone, compared to the Toshiba = WM Professional = WM Pocket PC). The absolutely HUGE news for English speakers in the Japan is that this is the first Windows Mobile device ever here that has an English interface option. This opens up the huge foreign enterprise market here and will definitely boost adoption of Windows Mobile in Japan. The Blackberry-like QWERTY keyboard and smaller lighter design will also be popular with many users. Finally in addition to red and white, the X02HT comes in red hot orange! I guarantee these will sell out fast. On sale from end July.
Naturally they both of 3G HSDPA data access and international roaming. I don't have price information as yet, but in his presentation, Masayoshi Son said they would be planning some special campaigns with Microsoft. See below for a video of the short presentation by Darren Huston, President and CEO of Microsoft (after 20 difficult to hear seconds by Masayoshi Son of Softbank).
The products aren't up on Softbank or HTC's sites yet but they should be here soon:
One of the biggest events on the calendar for Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded is coming up on 6th June at Meguro Gajoen, Tokyo. Especially with the number of Windows Mobile phones on the market steadily increasing and more come come this year it should be an exciting conference for anyone lookng to work with the platform.
"Mobile and Embedded DevCon (MEDC) is a global connected community of events focused on collaborative learning, shared knowledge and practical hands-on development featuring more than 130 technical sessions and 70 labs. This annual event is tailored for the developers, IT professionals and business professionals who are looking to innovate and scale their mobile and or embedded development investments, applications and solutions."Japan Event Information (Japanese only)
HTC (Wikipedia) will be taking over a cafe in Shinjuku station (the world's busiest!) until 30 April to show off some of their international smart phones (which will we see them in Japan?) and give new users a chance to play with and ask questions about HTC smart phones over a cup of coffee.
If you are trying to find it, wander around the Odakyu line area and you'll be sure to see it.
Willcom have announced they are going to have a Windows Mobile 6 device on the shelves in Japan by Summer, and they have even announced the site ..... which at the moment contains a flashy flash presentation with absolutely nothing more than the information above and a flying silver button (of the digital device, not the clothing, type)!
I guess we just have to stay tuned to http://www.x-w.jp/
In a separate announcement they also announced the start of the WILLCOM Sync Mobile service whereby users can sync email and calendar info from Exchange and Notes servers with no additional software or settings required on the server side. Just install and go. 1,800 yen (approx US$15) a month.
EMOBILE (Japanese) have announced they will launch their 3.6 Mbps HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) from March 31 in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Kyoto with other areas to follow later in the year. The sexy Sharp EM-ONE (Japanese)Windows Mobile device from Sharp will also be released to work with the service at the same time. (A PC Card will also be available with Express Cards and CF cards on the way).
Along with the announcement of Windows Mobile 6 at 3GSM in Barcelona, we are starting to hear news of new devices soon to hit the shelves.
Not officially announced yet, but the HTC Athena device looks very interesting. There are some YouTube videos on the HTC Fan site (Japanese).
It was also reported in the Nikkei this morning that Softbank is looking to release phones from Toshiba like those announced at 3GSM:
It's been officially announced that Windows Mobile 6 will be announced on Monday. (Yes - an announcement about an announcement ;-) so we will start seeing official reviews of the betas all over the the web from today.
Joel over at geek.com has a well written, concise overview of some of the new features. Well worth a read and I look forward to seeing the follow up article.
As soon as we get any news on new hardware in Japan with Windows Mobile 6 we'll be posting here so stay tuned.
It's great to see overseas developers developing for the Japanese market. Spb have a great range of products including Spb Backup,Spb Diary, Spb Finance, Spb GPRS Monitor, Spb Insight, Spb Mobile DVD, Spb Pocket Plus, Spb Time and Spb Weather. A message from their newsletter:
Spb Software House extends the Asian languages support. Japanese customers are very important for our company and this is why Japanese is one more language officially supported by Spb Software House. We are happy to inform our Japanese customers that from now on they can use their favorite products in their mother tongue!
ACCESS CO., a Japanese company famous for their mobile browsers have released a technical preview of version 3.4 of the NetFront browser. A couple of interesting sounding features from the press release:
"The technical preview version also includes a new, improved Page Pilot™ feature, which allows users to quickly zoom in on any area of a Web page. Also featured is Visual Bookmark an advanced technology that allows users to easily select a bookmark through a thumbnail image."The Page Pilot feature looks nice really nice. I've used similar features in RepliGo and other mobile browsers and it can can really make a big improvement when reading full sized pages on a small screen.
Here's the details of an upcoming event. Anyone using or interested in Windows Mobile is welcome to attend. Bring your device(s) ;-)
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An evening event for fans and users of Windows Mobile phones, such as the X01HT from Softbank and the W-ZERO3 series from Willcom. Whether you are a current user or interested in finding out more, come along to mix, mingle and share tips and tricks with an users and experts from both the Japanese and international community.
Featuring a demo of Mobile Device Center in Windows Vista and a Windows Mobile Q&A session.
Jointly organized by Windows Mobile Japan & htc Fan Site (Japanese)
Date: Tuesday February 6
Time: 7pm 'til late
Cost: 1000 yen, light snacks included (Cash bar and delicious a-la-carte food also available)
Expected attendance: 30 people
Venue: The Pink Cow, Shibuya (www.thepinkcow.com)
Schedule
18:45-19:00 Reception open
19:00-19:30 A demo of the Mobile Device Centre feature of Windows Vista
19:30-20:00 Q&A (Ask about using, buying or setup of Windows Mobile)
20:00-22:00 Netwokring and chat with other users.
Please RSVP here.
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The gathering of Windows Mobile fans around the HTC booth certainly brough with it it's fair share of rumors adding meat to the Microsoft announcement of 10 Windows Mobile devices in Japan by the end of 2007.
Among the tales, adding to the tell-tale Softbank logos at the HTC booth, were more HTC devices from Softbank in 2007 ... and did I also hear the words 'Softbank' and 'Toshiba' in the same breath ????
It's also hard to say anything about when AU will join the Windows Mobile Japan pack ......... except ........ watch this space ;-)
It was good to see the fan base there to support HTC at the booth including two of the guys behind the newly launched htc Fan site (www.htc-fan.jp - Japanese only) and Gzh (PDA & Smartphone Information Blog Site and Mobile Devices MVP).
(Small aside: Ironically although I'm almost permanently using my HTC Hermes as a day to day phone, I still carry around my Mitsubishi D902i just for the great camera used to take the photograph above and also more recently pictures of the great Christmas lights in Tokyo. Here's hoping HTC can up the stakes in the quality camera race).
The HTC booth was quite interesting, especially as they had a number of overseas models for Japanese consumers to drool over. The interesting thing was that the Softbank logo was in many of them, which might be hinting that they might use it in their next product line. HTC PR did not say which carrier will be using their device, but this might be some sort of a clue on their future lineup in Japan.
IBS Japan's miniClient Solution (Japanese link) was very fascinating. This is a device that uses Cirrus Logic's EP9307 (ARM920T 200Mhz) to send RGB picture data of such as a presentation wirelessly over Wifi and microSD (still under development) from a Windows Mobile device such as the X01HT.
More photos
1. Mobile Starter Kit
2. Windows Mobile Evaluation Program
3. Mobile Proposal Service
Mobile Starter's Kit
For those thinking of investing in mobile. Microsoft will send a bundle of information about security, maximizing your investment and lowering data communications cost. You must register to get this at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=5894497 (Japanese only)
Windows Mobile Evaluation Program
In this program, every month 10 companies seeking to evalutate the Windows Mobile devices will receive 3 loaner devices (W-ZERO3(es), hTC Z and X01HT), a trial MS Exchange account and free communication costs.
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. 
