Vodafone and Spicy Software hosted a conference to discuss the state of V-Applications in the cell phone market in Japan. Also discusses was the drive to move the Java specification to a more unified model. Three other companies were present to give talks as well, Taito, Alpha Technology Communications, and IAJ.

Vodafone, unifiying the usage of Java apps around the wold.

December 24th 2003, a seminar to promote businesses cases for V-Applications was held by "spicy software" in Vodafone HQ. During the event, as an implementation case example, the three companies, Taito, Alpha Technology and Communications (ATC), and IAJ each gave a presentation explaining the implementation of the technology at their company. In addition, Vodafone product managment group, service management department, section representative Atsushi Shima gave a talk o­n the future situation and future direction for V-Applications.

- Vodafone's Teshima explains V-Applications Change to Open Source

In October 2003, Vodafones V-Application specifications were released. Previously the 100KB Java Applications that were offered with the J-5x Series were open, however the larger 256KB applications specs were not. Because of this, compared with the 20,000,000 iApplications, and the 10,000,000 EZ applications, with the number of VApplications with released specifications being at just about 2,000,000, it can be seen that companies who do not donate to the specs site will have a very difficult development environment.


Spicy Soft's VP, Obara-san

However, with the release of the specifications, Vodafone has gained the ability to offer V-Applications to their 7,500,000 application supporting terminal users. Under these conditions, Obara, from SpicySoft, a 3rd party certifier said, "In a market with about 3 carriers and 38,000,000 units, we are trying to reach the majority of heavy application users."

He also stated that, "2004 will be the year preceding the cell phone application businesses gold rush." He shared the view that basically, in 2005 the application businesses will really start moving.


In this situation, Vodafone's Teshima says that the reason that V-Applications cannot become more widely popular o­n their own is due to security. Because in V-Applications, the address book, and camera images folder can also be accessed by Java applications, "Cell phones can easily become the target of hackers, not allowing for an orderly popularity increase." Because of this, it is necessary for either a contents formula to be provided by teh carrier, or to use a contents aggregator like SpicySoft.

He also went o­n to explain V-Applications situation from the beginning until the present, and the recent slow down in V-Application supporting device sales. According to Teshma, this is because the units supporting these applications have throughly penetrated he market, and the popularity has decreased a notch.

NTT Docomo's i-Applications and AU's EZ-Applications also are both Java applications, however these specifications are different depending o­n the carrier. Teshima compared V-Applications and i-Applications. "i-Applications utilize 30KB in PDC, and 100KB from the 900i from a while back. The V-Applications are 50KB from the beginning, and the application size is large, he claimed. Also, because makers are unable to change the specs of Java themselves the compatibility between devices is high. If there are regulated contents the camera images, folder, address book and other features can be accessed by the application.

Also in regards to the question, "Will V-Application businesses generate a profit?" It is felt that they will not lose money, but it cannot be promised that they will make extraordinary gains either. What Vodafone can promise is, "The introduction of innovative features", "The popularity of devices supporting V-Applications", and "Support of development environments". Keeping these three points in mind together is the most important thing. With this he spoke of the spirit of the move to open source in V-Applications.

Vodafone was the slowest out of the 3 major carriers to adopt open source, but Teshima said that it was because, "In the beginning we could o­nly see the formatted contents side of things." This was because the "Users", "Content Providers (CP)", "Vodafone" aspect of V-Applications was going well from the beginning.

However, the reason that this combination was successful is that in gaming related contents, the cellular phone is the agent, but is not suited to support applications with various functions. In order to supplement this and create a service not under the control of the providers, in addition to the three V-Application providers, the contents aggregator, contents vendors, and clients will be added to the mix.

In addition, Vodafone will provide paid support for open contents. Also, the company is planning to release an emulator for 256KB applications in February 2004. With this emulator, developers will not have to inconvenience themselves by downloading the V-Application in order to test the performance of their applications.

Finally, Teshima spoke about the world cellular phone market. Vodafone Live! Which is targeted at the foreign market, reached about 3,000,000 users within their first year. However, he says, "When thinking from the perspective of the Japanese market, this is this still a small number." Another way of looking at it is that, considering the popular the market is very large, so it will take several years. However, the interest in Java Applications themselves is strong, and in foreign commercials o­ne can even see Beckman enjoying Java applications. Vodafone, which is trying to emphasize the global nature of Java, will continue to unify the Java specifications. Teshima is currently working to reach the goal of a 2004 specifications unification.
     

- Each Companies Implementation case Introduction

The three companies that we introduced, ATC, IAJ, and Taito each explained their own V-Application Service geared towards their own companies.

Taito which is offering the corporate sales oriented ASP, DiRECT, states that they feel that the demand for digital marketplaces is increasing. In an survey directed to Taito's end users, there was a strong demand for digital market places selling game content. Taito's Matsuzawa says that, there is a high demand for simple games that can be payed with o­ne hand. This is very attractive to companies which can utilize it even if they don't keep products in stock.

ATC introduced their messaging application known as "Alpha Messenger". ATC is offering content o­n their digital market place that will make their users want to continuously use their service. Companies that join their campaign are able to conduct information exchange via the messenger application, and this will work to create a more loyal customer. Later, they will collaborate with companies with character rights, and companies with popular consuer products. In this way they hope to be able to create a new type of digital market place.

Out of the three companies, AIJ introduced the most business oriented solution. AIJ was promoting a 4MB Java Application remote admin tool. Positional Information and Java Applications that can be administrated remotely by ASP forContract workers and part-timers who demand o­nsite, and off site currently introduced in car leasing companies, and 100 yen shopss. The price of about 680 yen per ID is the target.

This seminar brought together 50 attendees for three days. According to SpicySoft's Obara, there will be more seminars like this in the future.

Original Text: http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/cda/article/news_toppage/17005.html