As NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode service continues to grow in popularity, several industry players are offering solutions to make i-mode content compatible with WAP phones.
One such company, iJapan, recently introduced a multilanguage, multiplatform technology aiming to do just that-allow i-mode and WAP phones to read Internet content written in the other’s technology. It translates a Web site written in i-mode’s cHTML into WML for WAP, and vise versa for i-mode.
Although headquartered in the United States-Bellevue, Wash.-the company is focusing most of its efforts on the Japanese market.
“We went after the Japanese market because that’s where things are happening,” said Kevin Conroy, president and chief operating officer of iJapan. Specifically, the company aims to help Japanese WAP subscribers access i-mode content.
Japanese carrier IDO has about 1 million wireless Web content subscribers using WAP, but there are only about 1,000 WAP sites written for the Japanese market. By way of comparison, DoCoMo recently broke the 10-million-subscriber mark for its i-mode service, which has tens of thousands of sites.
“The reason we got into this is that there are 15,000 cHTML sites and only a handful of WAP sites in Japan,” Conroy said. “We allow a Japanese WAP user access to i-mode sites.”
The platform strips out the graphics content of many i-mode sites, but it retains the superior navigational capabilities, he added.
“We give you a really nice user interface that allows the feel of i-mode navigation. The issue there is more of a phone issue. I-mode phones have been really well thought out.”
Some WAP phones may not be able to navigate i-mode sites easily because the i-mode sites have been written specifically for each i-mode phone. Some limitations are expected, he said.
Although the company places itself at the convergence of WAP and i-mode, iJapan is clearly i-mode centric.
“That’s our bread and butter,” Conroy said. “Our knowledge base is i-mode. Everybody already knows WAP.”
In the United States, iJapan assists content providers looking to offer their content on the i-mode network. DoCoMo works closely with all its content providers to develop compelling applications, but U.S. firms don’t have the same level of contact with the carrier. So iJapan aims to act as the go-between, solving both i-mode technology and language barriers. Conroy said the company is working with reservation and delivery response firms in particular.
iJapan is a relatively new and small company. It formed 15 months ago and employs about 26 people. It remains in its first round of angel investment financing.
The company originally named its technology Mobi, but it found that name was already in use in Japan, so it is in the process of finding a new name.
Conroy said he eventually wants to expand iJapan services to include natural language translation, which would allow messages to be sent in English and translated to Japanese on the fly, as well as a billing platform, so a user can pay for services on the phone bill.
Although the technology is i-mode-centric, Conroy is not convinced it will be the dominant standard. He said WAP is an open standard and very widespread, while i-mode is proprietary and in a closed market.
“Is i-mode successful because it’s in Japan? Is it a cultural thing that makes it successful? Will it translate well to other countries? I don’t know that answer,” he said. “WAP in its present incarnation is pretty weak. Will it catch up? Yeah.
“As i-mode proliferates in other markets, we want to be there and propagate our technology as well.”
