Continued from the previous part
Everybody's talking about Smartphones in the global mobile phone market. Now that the environment makes it easy to develop multi-function handsets, competition between involved manufacturers as growing rapidly more intense. Who will emerge victorious in this new competition? The fight has already begun.
"You can't call it just a smartphoneΆχ anymore... it's a superphone," said Google Inc. at a press conference held on January 5, 2010 where it released the Nexus One as the first handset sold under its own brand name.
Άχ Smartphone: A general name applied to a portable terminal providing voice and data communication, almost as easy to use as a PC. While there is no precise definition, most terminals allow functions to be added by installing new apps, and can execute Web-based apps in the same way as PCs.
The Nexus One mounts the latest version (Ver. 2.1) of Google's Android software platform for mobile phones. Product planning, software development and sale are handled by Google, with handset design and manufacturing by High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) cooperating in a horizontal division of labor.
The fact that a software company is selling a "superphone" with high-end functionality under its own brand name points up just how much the environment surrounding the mobile phone market has changed. It marks the beginning of an era where it is common for the majority of basic handset design to be standardized, with planning, design and manufacturing handled through a horizontal division of labor.
In other words, the unwritten rules that handset manufacturers have lived by until now are gone. For Japanese manufacturers, though, who have been unable to penetrate the barriers surrounding foreign markets, it also represents a golden opportunity to break through. The first shots have been fired in the battle to determine the winners under this new set of rules.
The world mobile phone market is bubbling with excitement over smartphones, driven by the iPhone. The iPhone was first sold in June 2007, with the third-generation model appearing in June 2009.
Apple revolutionized what was "common sense" in the mobile phone market with the iPhone. It sold the phone under its own brand name, and simultaneously offered online sale of content and application software. Customization for mobile phone carriers in various nations was implemented through minimal software revisions, with the same hardware shipped worldwide. This is very close to the business method Apple has used and perfected with its PC operations over the years. "It would be an error to position the iPhone as just a terminal with a handy touch-panel user interface. The whole business was planned carefully for strength, from handset sales methods to how they sell content and apps," warns Satoshi Nakajima, Chief Executive Officer of UIE Japan, Inc.
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