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The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business
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The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business

Philip Sugai, Marco Koeder and Ludovico Ciferri
Wiley, 2010
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Editorial Rating

8

getAbstract Rating

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Mobile phone technology is ascendant. With billions of subscribers across the globe and more signing on every day, it is the technology of today and tomorrow. Japanese firms are by far the leaders in the thriving “mobile market.” Three experts on Japan’s cellphone industry – Philip Sugai, Marco Koeder and Ludovico Ciferri – explain why, providing an in-depth, insightful report on where mobile is headed in the years to come. They also discuss six principles that mobile carriers and service providers around the world can learn from and may want to follow. getAbstract recommends this book – with its informative foreword by Martin Koelling, the Japan correspondent for the Financial Times Germany – as a worthy reference guide for professionals in the mobile arena. In this area, as Japan goes, so goes the globe.

Summary

The Rise of “Homo Digitalis”

Who do Japanese car manufacturers see as their most formidable competitors? Other carmakers? Nope. They constantly look over their shoulders at their nation’s mobile phone companies – and for good reason. Most of Japan’s young men who previously spent their money on cars now spend large sums on sophisticated “voice and data services” for their handsets. Throughout the country, mobile phones are replacing automobiles as the ultimate “symbol of freedom.” Just as people once valued cars for the physical mobility they granted, they now prize mobile technology for its ability to connect them to “almost everything and everybody” wherever they go.

Of course, mobile services are popular worldwide. But in Japan and, to a lesser degree, South Korea, they dominate. Advanced third-generation (3G) mobile technology in Japan has a two-to-three year lead on cellphone technology in many other developed nations. The country’s more than 100 million subscribers are evolving from homo sapiens to homo digitalis. Though Apple, Google and other major high-tech companies are making great strides in their mobile offerings, these...

About the Authors

Philip Sugai directs the Mobile Consumer Lab at the International University of Japan. Marco Koeder heads CyberMedia K.K., a Japanese digital media agency. Ludovico Ciferri is a research manager for Istituto Superiore Mario Boella.

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