John Whelan is Off Portal and Off Net!

i-mode vs O2 Active - the debate rages on

Excellent blog report from Tom Hume on a public i-mode workshop held in UK last week.

Some very interesting statistics on the O2 active vs I-mode debate.

I quote the most interesting stuff from Tom's Blog directly below with the disclaimer being that this is obviously "a quote of a quote" . That is the comments are attributed to Jag Minhas: Chief Architect for Data Products, O2 but the interpretation is from Tom Hume.

"WAP has been more successful in the UK than in other markets across
Europe. O2 Active generates 50% of all non-SMS data traffic in the UK,
with 1b page impressions pcm.

O2 active: youth, mix CP/operator branded, some paid-for content,
event-driven billing. Brand experience. No control over specs of
devices.
I-mode: mass market, multiple brands/category, no paid-for content,
subscription model. Supermarket-like experience. Validated devices.
86/14 split which accounts for a coverage for risk and fraud which
doesn't existing in Japan (?)

I-mode will not replace O2 Active. O2 Active is important right now
because of the scarcity of devices which support I-mode. I-mode is the
"next step". This is a very consistent story coming out of O2 at the
moment, but I have to confess I'm sceptical: having 2 mobile Internet
services must be confusing to a customer-base who are only beginning
to get the concept in the first place...??" End of quote.

posted by alatto @ 10:13 AM