IP: Media Loves the Dick Tracy Wristphone [ a good look at

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:18:37 +0900
To: Talon Jensen <talonjensen () earthlink net>
From: sja () glocom ac jp (Stephen J. Anderson)
Cc: farber () central cis upenn edu


At 11:17 7/5/96 -0700, Talon Jensen wrote:


> I believe the "internet appliance" is an example of the hype similar to the 
> hype surrounding the PDAs (note:  personal digital assistants).
> I assume that it wasn't clear from my message that 
> my view was years in the future (I would guess at least 5 to 10 years away
> from 
> the beginning).


Thanks for raising this issue of the Internet appliance--I disagree totally
with your time frame.   Perhaps they cannot build these things yet
elsewhere, but I made a trip yesterday to Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics
Mecca, in search Japan's illusive Internet device.  


Guess what?  I find that it already is on sale in different forms, but all
in Japanese.


> > People from Apple and Oracle say things like this . . .This is what I get
> > from not staying up on current fads or marketing. 


In both the cases that you mention, I fail to see serious effort to make
the device, and agree with your skepticism.  Apple SAYS that it will
resurrect Newton, and CEO Amelio hired Ellen Hancock last week to whip the
company back into shape, but perhaps it will take five years.  However,   I
am convinced that you are looking in the wrong place if you want to see the
real products that are actually now or soon to be manufactured.


My finding--and this is raw data--is that people should pay more attention
to things like the wristphone and Internet devices from Japan.  Yesterday
in Tokyo, I looked for two things, connectivity and price, and I walked
away from Japan's leading electronics district with several examples of
Internet devices.


First, look at the Sharp Zaurus line for a small devIce.  The MI-10DC is a
PDA (personal digital assistant) with a digital camera, small color
display, and Internet connectivity through a 28.8 K modem.  This amazing
little device can browse the web (text preferred for me, even with the
compression).  You can scribble a message with the touch-pencil and send a
note off to someone.  And the camera?  Yes, for reporters out there, you
can send the image back to base, but I did not try to guess time/quality of
the transmission.  I did watch the camera take our pictures as we went by,
as a type of jerky vIdeo, and then see the images stored in the memory as a
file.  


Drawback of Zaurus?  Price is still more than double the target of $500,
but give it time.  The MI-10DC retails for 155,000 yen ($1409 at 110
yen/dollar) but you can bargain for a discount that is bound to increase
every day in Akihabara.  I did find some discounts when I asked about other
devices.


Next example--the rest of the Sharp Zaurus/Wizard line of PDAs.  The MI-10
does not have a digital camera nor color, but the connectivity is there as
priced at 120,000 yen ($1091).  This thing looks a lot like Sharp's PI-7000
or PI-6000, but the others have less functions and lower prices.  I mention
these are on sale in Tokyo because they look like the Sharp Wizard, and may
some day hit the English-speaking market as a device.  Sharp will make
money in Japan because they offer peripheral devices such as a business
namecard scanner that keeps up to 2200 cards in the Zaurus.   But on the
cheapest of these devices in Japan, the PI-6000, its list price was 69,000
yen, but discounted to 38,500 yen ($350) which is well under the target
price of five hundred dollars.


Before the skeptics are all over me about reasoning, I think that Sharp
will have to reduce prices eventually because of competition.  Casio,
Toshiba, IBM, and others had devices on sale in Akihabara to challenge, if
not in functions, then in connectivity.


NEC Mobile Gear was the main one that caught my eye.  The NEC MC-P1 seemed
similar to the Sharp Zaurus line M1-10 as a regular backlit LCD-style PDA. 
Are you following these hieroglyphic model numbers?  I decided to include
these for the journalists who are finicky about sources--check them out,
because these things offer good connectivity to computers.  The thing about
the NEC line is that it is built with connectivity to the NEC 98 model
series computers that sell ONLY in Japan, and might be missed because it is
not ready for prime time US market.  The price on this devIce was
incredible--65,000 yen list price, 54,000 yen discount ($491).


That device is close to the winner because of price, but the salespeople
said that a companion model NEC MC-K1 was selling better because it had a
keyboard.  The idea of the Mobile Gear was that you could dial your
Internet Service Provider and send you email or whatever.  The keyboard was
a bit more expensive--retail list price of 78,000 yen, discounted to 64,000
yen ($582).  To my mind, that seems to be the real winner in Akihabara in
early July 1996.


 I provIde these details because I am repeatedly shocked at how little
information gets out about Japanese computer and communications industry
WITHIN JAPANESE MARKETS.  The products aren't yet ready for the world, but
they are moving quickly within Japan.  To my mind, it will be only a year
or so until these new Internet connectivity devices will be marketed
elsewhere in the world, and not in the Japanese language.  Then, all the
frequent flyer miles of Bill Gates, Jim Ellison, Jim Bizdos, and Jim Clark
will begin to make sense.  Between clones of that Mobile Gear keyboard and
lower access charges for Internet service, the broad public in America and
Japan are ready to create a sizeable, low-cost market for the Net.


Stephen Anderson
Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM)
Tokyo, Japan