Symbian Plc has said that it will have devices using a Japanese version of the EPOC operating system on the streets by the middle of 2000. Psion Plc – a founding member of the Symbian joint venture – and Matsushita Communication Industrial Co – which has just taken an 8.8% stake – will be releasing devices using a Japanese version of the OS, developed by Psion in conjunction with native software house Kanri Kogaku Kenkyusho Co Ltd (K3).
London-based Psion will be launching a Japanese version of its Series 5 PDA, a device that is a best-seller in Europe but which has not made much impact outside of its home markets. The PDA will connect to the internet and send and receive email. It will have a suite of office applications and scheduling and data synchronization devices. All devices based on the EPOC OS will also include positioning software, so that as long as the machine is switched on, it will be able to give users details of their current location. The heart of the localized version of EPOC is a Japanese Front End Processor (FEP), which Psion and K3 have been developing since December 1997. The FEP is a small footprint tool that converts phonetic text input on a western style keyboard and delivers Japanese text in mixed Kanji, Katakana and Hiragana.
Historically, the Japanese market for PDAs has been dominated by Sharp Corp and Casio Corp, companies which both use Microsoft’s Windows CE in current handheld devices. However, the global market leader, Palm Computing, a subsidiary of 3Com Corp, launched the Palmpilot range in Japan in February, unnerving domestic producers. IBM Corp is developing a wireless PDA based on the Palm OS for Japan. All of the mobile operating system rivals are working on versions of their software for the largely untapped Chinese market and other East Asian countries.
Meanwhile, Japanese consumer electronics company, Matsushita will be launching smartphones and communicators based on EPOC. Under its Panasonic brand, Matsushita currently dominates the Japanese market for personal digital communicators with more than a 35% share. Peter Richardson, principal analyst for mobile communications at Dataquest, expects that the Panasonic-branded EPOC devices will continue to be extremely successful. The Japanese, culturally, are big adopters of these devices, they seem to jump on them with glee, Richardson says. He describes the market for EPOC as very significant, especially as NTT DoCoMo – a Symbian licensee and Japan’s largest mobile network provider – is driving the market.
