I am not sure if it is a show of weakness, or just another table-upsetting play by our old friend Son Masayoshi, but Softbank is now offering a Free 8GB iPhone as long as you sign up for the two-year data plan. We’ve seen this model before: Japan pioneered the ‘free crack pipe’ model almost 10 years ago with game consoles and cell phones. But as functionality, swiveling screens, and other doohickeys made their way into the small devices, prices started to creep up. Hardware prices took a real hike as the portable chips made jail breaking the phones an assumption, and as all signal carriers standardized. (In fact, most electronics stores will transfer your chip into your new phone right there when you buy it.)
But Softbank has two things going for it: 1. jailbreaking the iPhone is possible but not easy, 2. the 3G network is still somewhat proprietary. With these, Softbank can go back to the market-share giveaways that made them famous. Earlier, I didn’t see the iPhone taking off so strongly inside the Empire. Now– maybe we’ve got a real race. In response, competitors could go either way:
a) Use Android to lower the cost of the hardware (also offer for free), and then use VoIP wherever possible to lower radio costs. However, this doesn’t work because– believe it or not– open wifi networks are not that common in Tokyo
b) Use Android or another OS platform to out-app the iphone (weak strategy)
If the iPhone can get sufficient marketshare, it will be fascinating to see what unexpected apps the Japanese developer community comes up with.