WSJ.com - After Long Peace, Wireless Operator Stirs Up Industry
WSJ.com - After Long Peace, Wireless Operator Stirs Up IndustryAfter Long Peace,
Wireless Operator
Stirs Up Industry
U.K.'s Vodafone Is Dictating
Handsets' Look and Feel;
Nokia Tries Resistance
Hiding the Logo on the Back
By DAVID PRINGLE
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 12, 2004; Page A1
In late summer 2003, Vodafone Group PLC herded executives from 10 of the world's largest cellphone manufacturers into a conference room at Tokyo's Grand Hyatt hotel. There, a top Vodafone executive delivered an ultimatum: Comply with thousands of technical and design requirements or forget about supplying next-generation phones to Vodafone, the world's largest cellphone-services company.
Phone makers including MotorolaInc., Samsung Electronics Co. and Sony-Ericsson Mobile Communications Ltd., quickly agreed to Vodafone's demands. Even though they risked turning their phones into anonymous carriers for Vodafone's services, the companies couldn't turn away Vodafone's bulk orders. Even Nokia Corp., the world's largest cellphone maker, acceded to most of Vodafone's demands after a long period of resistance.
"Regardless of whether you like it or not, [these kinds of demands are] a fact of the business," says Katsumi Ihara, chief strategy officer of Sony Corp. Sony is the joint-venture partner of Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson in Sony-Ericsson Mobile Communications, a cellphone manufacturing company.
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