“The future is in the software,” said Nayeem Islam, vice president of NTT DoCoMo Inc.’s mobile software laboratory in San Jose, Calif. “The hardware is a commodity.”
Islam’s assertion, spoken with equal measures of confidence and conviction, defines DoCoMo’s past as well as its future. The Japanese carrier has long downplayed the role of the handset manufacturer in order to promote its own features and services. And in the coming years, the carrier plans to augment that strategy with software developed by Islam and his team.
The mobile phone “is going to be a lifestyle device,” Islam promised. “It’ll become sort of a remote control for your life.”
DoCoMo has long been on the revolutionary edge of wireless. The carrier was one of the first to promote wireless e-mail and data applications through its i-mode service, it was on the forefront of the downloadable games market with its i-appli service, and was the first to launch commercial third-generation services. DoCoMo has been offering video-calling services for more than a year.
Since other carriers often embrace its innovations, DoCoMo has long been considered a bellwether when it comes to forecasting the oft-changing tides of wireless. Imitation is indeed the most sincere form of flattery.
DoCoMo’s leading position is due in part to its reliance on its own research. While most wireless carriers purchase technology from software and infrastructure vendors, DoCoMo extends a significant amount of time and energy on its in-house research-and-development effort. The carrier generates $50 billion in sales annually, and fully $1 billion of that is earmarked for R&D. Islam heads up the carrier’s U.S. lab, which works in tandem with similar labs in Tokyo, Beijing and Munich.
“These four R&D groups use that $1 billion and turn it into new ideas for the company,” Islam explained.
NTT DoCoMo USA Labs focuses primarily on handset software. The carrier’s other labs focus on issues including networking, radio technology, routing and network software. Handset software is key, Islam explained, because it’s what separates one carrier from another.
DoCoMo in the 1990s separated itself from the rest of the world’s wireless industry by taking control of its handset destiny. The carrier gave its handset suppliers a strict set of specifications and technologies to follow, requirements it could demand thanks to its towering position in the market. And although DoCoMo is no longer the only game in town, it is still able to hide the brands of its handset manufacturers behind that of its own.
“I think that was a huge, huge differentiator,” Islam said. “We can have a uniform, branded experience across all our phones.”
Vodafone Group plc, in promoting its own live! wireless data platform, engaged a similar strategy by controlling the look, feel and software of its handsets. The European carrier even managed to somewhat loosen Nokia Corp.’s stranglehold on the European market by relying on smaller, more willing suppliers like Sharp Corp.
“We believe that’s one of the ways we can differentiate ourselves in a highly competitive market,” Islam said. “We’re going to pay for these handsets anyway so we should have a say in how the phone is developed, and that way we can bring costs down.”
Indeed, DoCoMo recently introduced a software reference platform that includes many of the technologies it requires in its handsets. The platform, which supports both the Symbian and Linux operating systems, is available to handset manufacturers wishing to build phones for DoCoMo while keeping their own development costs under control. Already, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications L.P. and Sharp have licensed the software reference platform. Islam’s lab was involved in developing the platform, which also includes elements of open source technologies.
The U.S. DoCoMo lab is now working on several key technologies, some of which could be turned into commercial products as early as next year. Specifically, Islam is working on phone operating systems, middleware and security.
On the operating system front, DoCoMo has teamed with Symbian for its OS and with Sunnyvale, Calif.-based MontaVista Software Inc. for its Linux platform. Other companies including Motorola Inc. and Openwave Systems Inc. also use MontaVista technology for their Linux products.
Islam wouldn’t discuss operating systems from other providers, such as Microsoft Corp. and PalmSource Inc., but he did say that DoCoMo would research all available options.
“We do want to have a set of different OSs so we’re not locked into one vendor,” Islam said. “We are constantly evaluating our OS options.”
On the middleware side, DoCoMo is working on a variety of issues. The carrier is working on software to improve video and audio playback on handsets, as well as on a standardized user interface for Java applications. Islam said the carrier plans to offer a toolkit to application developers that would include technologies and guidelines for the Java user interface.
The carrier is also working on developing over-the-air updating technology, which has become a hot topic in the wireless industry of late. Islam said DoCoMo is working with all the major OTA companies, although he did not name any. OTA companies, including Bitfone Corp., InnoPath Software and others, offer technology that can patch software bugs through over-the-air downloads.
“Managing the device over the air is going to be a very interesting project,” Islam said. “We want to do lightweight, transparent fixes to the phone.”
Islam said DoCoMo is using technology from a variety of OTA vendors, but is also developing its own improvements and enhancements.
The security side is where DoCoMo’s innovations are most apparent. Islam said the carrier is researching ways to scan for software bugs at the programming level. Instead of sending out software patches to fix glitches, the approach would allow DoCoMo to identify and correct glitches before they are delivered to the handset.
“We’re reducing the possibility of programmers introducing security-related bugs,” Islam said. “Any time data leaves or comes into the phone … you have a potential source of problems, and we believe we can address those at the source.”
Islam said the anti-virus technology would sit inside a phone or inside the carrier’s network and would scan applications at the C++ or Java programming level. The technology would evaluate the code to ensure it works as it is meant to.
The future is bright for mobile-phone software enthusiasts, Islam said. He predicts a time when mobile phones will be sold as blank slates waiting for software. Users will be able to configure and personalize their phones by picking and choosing which bits of software they like best.
“If you just want to make calls … you’ll just get support for that,” Islam said, describing the future as “phones on demand.”
