Japanese mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo and South Korea-based telecommunications leader Samsung Electronics announced that the two companies have reached an agreement to jointly develop i-mode handsets that are compatible with second-generation (2G) GSM/GPRS wireless networks.
i-mode is DoCoMo's propriety mobile internet platform, and is currently being offered to customers in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Taiwan via the GSM/GPRS wireless networks of DoCoMo's partners. In Japan, i-mode is available to both PDC (2G) and W-CDMA (3G) customers.
"NTT DoCoMo is extremely pleased to be collaborating with Samsung," said Kei-ichi Enoki, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of DoCoMo's i-mode Business Division. "As a leading player in the global marketplace, Samsung has an excellent reputation for producing superior products. By joining forces with Samsung, we will be able to offer our customers an even greater selection of quality i-mode handsets. This will be extremely advantageous in helping us expand the number of i-mode customers in global GSM/GPRS markets."
"NTT DoCoMo's i-mode offers mobile users a variety of options to maximize their wireless experience. We believe that the adoption of i-mode into our phones will enable us to establish the mobile communication context of satisfying customers' various needs", ByungDuck Cho, Executive Vice President, Mobile Communication R&D Team of Samsung Electronics.
The phones, which will be equipped with ACCESS browser and Java™, are scheduled for market release in early 2004.
Samsung will showcase mock-ups of the jointly developed handsets at CeBIT 2003, the world's largest IT trade fair to be held March 12-19 in Hanover, Germany.
