Japan's phones - the wonders of the world ?

Anytime when one looks at advanced phones, the market that most comes into mind. Top non-Japanese phones such as the iPhone, and Nokia's N series don't even come close to the advancement of the phones sold in Japan. It was many years ago that the NTT DoCoMo network had reached 3G capabilities and sold phones that amazed the rest of the world. However, such advancement comes with own problems; trying to pack in so many features and yet meeting goals of being able to make the phone very usable makes the task of designers very difficult. In the end, there is only so much that one can do with the limited number of keys and overall phone size, and the various combinations that Japanese phone makers have come up with to provide the range of applications available can confuse the most advanced of users. If you remember the old joke about not being able to set the time on the VCR, this is way beyond that. Get a glimpse of how things actually are:

Indeed, Japanese handsets have become prime examples of feature creep gone mad. In many cases, phones in Japan are far too complex for users to master. "There are tons of buttons, and different combinations or lengths of time yield different results,'" says Koh Aoki, an engineer who lives in Tokyo. Experimenting with different key combinations in search of new features is "good for killing time during a long commute," Aoki says, "but it's definitely not elegant."
Japan has long been famous for its advanced cellphones with sci-fi features like location tracking, mobile credit card payment and live TV. These handsets have been the envy of consumers in the United States, where cell technology has trailed an estimated five years or more. But while many phones would do Captain Kirk proud, most of the features are hard to use or not used at all. Japan is a culture of spec sheets. When consumers go to electronics stores to buy a cellphone, they frequently line up the specifications side by side to compare them before deciding which one to buy.

In contrast, phone makers such as Apple and Nokia have been behind on the feature list, but are seemingly way ahead on making phones look good and be very usable.

A leading retailer drops Microsoft's Zune

Microsoft a few years decided to step into the field of consumer electronics in a limited way, with efforts for both gaming consoles and MP3 / Media players. Both of these are fast moving items, with fierce competition, an extreme focus on features, and ability to turn users into die-hard fans. In both these areas, there were entrenched players in the field when Microsoft made its entry - in gaming consoles, Sony's Playstation and Playstation 2 (and Nintendo in a smaller way), as well as Apple's iPod in the field of MP3/ Media player were both established players with very strong market shares.
Microsoft on the other hand has a very strong marketing strength, as well as presence in the customer software segment; however, Microsoft had to build up a mind and market presence in the actual consumer devices retail positions. This takes time and effort, and you need to show increasing market share. This has now suffered a setback, with one of the leading retailers, GameStop deciding to stop stocking the Zune (Microsoft's personal media player) due to inadequate sales:

Microsoft's entry into the consumer electronics space came with a thorny channel problem. To succeed in capturing a broader audience, Microsoft had to broaden its retail channel. The Xbox business helped take care of that problem: once Microsoft proved that it was serious about developing and promoting the first Xbox, and once it began to show reasonable sales figures, a new class of retailers--including game-specialty stores like GameStop--were happy to make shelf space for Microsoft's consoles and games, right alongside Sony and Nintendo.
Apparently, after giving it a year and a half, GameStop has found that's not the case. Looking at recent NPD figures, it's easy to see why--compared with the first Xbox, the product just isn't moving nearly as many units (2 million in 18 months) or capturing enough market share.

Still a bit early to write off the Zune, but it just is not capturing any imagination, and in the meantime Apple has moved ahead with the iPod Touch / iPhone, capturing the wow effect.

Nintendo Wii Fit going to increase Wii sales

The Nintendo Wii has been the leader in the field of video game consoles, leaving the much more powerful Sony PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360 way behind. Consumers have been attracted by the power of the simplicity of the console and its usability, specially the motion sensing capability of the Wii remote that allows users to be more interactive with the game and brings a much better handling of the games. This has continued, with the Wii steadily out-selling the other gaming consoles, and more games being written for the Wii over a period of time (inspite of the much more powerful marketing power of Sony and Microsoft).
Now, Nintendo is coming out with a game that is very eagerly awaited, and promises to let people overcome the couch potato effect of a video game console, instead they get a way to become fit:

Nintendo will be releasing the newest of its exercise games, the Wii Fit on May 19th and you can expect it to fly off of the retailer shelves. But just who will be buying it? Many expect that our mom's will be buying them, at least according to some analysts and some research. The Nintendo Wii has been more popular among women than the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Sony PlayStation 3, but some analysts believe that this game that combines exercise and entertainment will help put Wii sales over the top again.
Wii Fit will retail for $89.99 and will include a balance board to facilitate the more than 40 yoga, aerobics, and strength training exercises. The user sets their own fitness goals and keeps track of their progress over time.

If this truly turns out to be well designed, then this well and truly ensure that Nintendo keeps its lead over the other game consoles; further, there are not many analysts now who actually believe that Sony and Microsoft will be able to challenge this dominance in the near future.

iTunes to allow movie download same day as DVD release

Apple's iTunes had always been seen as somewhat of a threat / opportunity for the industry. The opportunity was always there since it was the legal way for the recording industry to make money from the downloading of music, while the way in which Apple behaves (driven by Steve Jobs) scares the recording industry. Apple is the one which always seeks more control over the entire process and does not seem to care as much for the dictates of the recording industry as other channels do. In a step forward, and scaring the conventional sales channels of the movie DVD industry, Apple has now declared that it will make downloads of movie available on the same day as DVD releases:

Although the vast majority of all sales of movies are done on DVD, likely at mass market locations such as Wal-Mart, there is a slowly growing population of those who are playing for digital downloads. Such a phenomenon is becoming well established in the realm of music, where users of iTunes will pay 99 cents to download a song. Apple is now hoping to bring the same level of success it did to music over to movies.
Movies purchased from iTunes can be viewed on an iPod with video, iPhone, Mac or PC or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. New release movies will be priced at $14.99 and older catalog titles at $9.99. The iTunes Store current carries over 1,500 films at present.

This is likely to covert into an increased share of the market. So even though there will be people who will be wanting a physical DVD, there will be a large number of people who will settle for the convenience of being able to download a movie onto their device of convenience and jump onto the iTunes bandwagon. This is bound to have an effect on the regular store sales of DVD's and will make them more unhappy.. tough luck, this will not go away.

Impending News: Microsoft to increase offer for Yahoo

There is a lot of buzz in the press that Microsoft may increase its offer for Yahoo so that a deal becomes much closer. The press reports claim that Microsoft is very close to increasing its bid so that the impasse can get over and Yahoo becomes amenable to a negotiated deal rather than a hostile offer. From Bloomberg.com:

May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp., closing in on the biggest acquisition in its 33-year history, may seek to end an impasse with Yahoo! Inc.'s board by raising its takeover offer, a person familiar with the matter said. Talks intensified this week after Yahoo spent three months hunting for alternatives to the deal.
A higher offer may win over Yahoo's board, eliminating the need for Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer to go to shareholders with a hostile offer, which might have spurred an employee exodus. A deal also may halt Yahoo's efforts to forge an online advertising partnership with rival Google Inc.

The deal remains important for both Microsoft and Yahoo. The more that the deal remains out of touch, the more likely is that Yahoo and Google will come to sort of agreement that will pass regulatory approval, and leave Microsoft way behind Google. For Yahoo, it is a now a diminishing third player and no longer seems to have the ability to move to second position.
Ultimately, from all the discussion, it would seem that the entire issue now resolves around the price to be paid. Yahoo claims that the offer under-values the value of Yahoo, and many of the prime shareholders seem to agree. So if Microsoft increased the offer, it may break the impasse and convince the board.

MySpace will launch MySpace Music

MySpace is a very popular social networking site with the tens of active million users making it a very important portal overall. One of the popular features that keeps a lot of users on the site is the music feature. This has always annoyed the music labels, and finally they are getting a solution that is making them happy.

The social networking heavyweight announced Thursday that it has deals with Sony/BMG, Universal and Warner music labels to transform its current music offerings into a full-fledged jukebox of streaming and downloadable music. As the new features are rolled out in the coming months, MySpace Music will evolve into "what we think is going to be a transformative music experience for the user," says MySpace cofounder Chris DeWolfe.
Under the new agreement, De Wolfe says that labels plan to offer artists' entire catalogs for free listening and for-pay downloads. "We are considering a subscription model as well if it makes sense," he says. In an earlier interview, DeWolfe did not announce a pricing scheme nor would he say whether downloads would be MP3s or another format, or whether they would contain digital rights management. "Not all the music companies have embraced full non-DRM downloads," he said. "I personally think that is where the market is going but that will be a decision all the music companies will have to make."

From initial trends, it seems that the deal is something that record labels are happy with, and that will translate into terms that a lot of users may not end up liking. One has to wait and see how this will turn out.

Microsoft not going to increase offer for Yahoo

A typical takeover effort typically starts with a negotiating bid, that is normally not exceptional, and then over a period of time, there is pressure for the bid to go up. What typically happens at this time is that more contenders will jump into the fray, putting pressure for increasing the bid; also, what may happen is that the board of the company being acquired pushes for a higher bid as a condition of accepting the bid; and in some cases, influential shareholders holding significant shares may agree to tender shares if the price being paid is increased.
However, the saga of Microsoft's takeover of Yahoo is not following any of these trends. The refusal of Yahoo's management to accept this offer was not a surprise, but everything else is. The value of Yahoo's bid is overall so high, that no white knight could be found who would be willing to fork out that kind of money. Not much of relief to Yahoo in this regard. Microsoft has also steadily refused to increase its bid so far, maybe in the expectation that eventually the pressure of investors and employee morale decrease will force Yahoo to accept, and there are signs that this may be happening:

Microsoft Corp is evaluating its bid for Yahoo Inc because the Internet company may have lost value since Microsoft made its offer, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. The news, first reported by Reuters, sent Yahoo shares down more than 5 percent in extended trade.
After weeks of silence, recent comments from various sources to journalists suggest the software maker is hardening its stance and pushing Yahoo for action. The sources told Reuters that Yahoo has lost key personnel, making the company less valuable, while generous severance packages it handed out to executives and full-time employees in the case of a takeover have made it more expensive.

Of course, if Yahoo starts to lose key personnel and the industry sees much lower growth, then any hint of Microsoft lowering its bid may have a very strong impact on Yahoo. To some extent, analysts have made this deal a done deal in the end, that is, no matter the discussions, the deal will be made (in order to give the 2 companies a fighting chance against Google).