The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business – Philip Sugai, Marco Koeder, Ludovico Ciferri

Japan’s mobile customers enjoyed better mobile devices, more content, and the most advanced functionality and services for the last 10+ years. This book helps cut through the many myths and all of the hype surrounding Japan’s mobile dominance to identify the most important laws that will guide the success of mobile businesses around the world. Based on detailed market analysis and unprecedented access to the major players and pioneers of the Japanese mobile industry, this publication helps you understand the Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business. These will help you and your business successfully navigate the challenges that the world’s Wireless Revolution brings. From Law #1 through Law #6, authors Philip Sugai, Marco Koeder, and Ludovico Ciferri will help guide you to distinguish mobile myth from mobile fact, micro developments from macro trends, and regional characteristics from universal truths.

The book highlights Japan’s incredible efforts to offer consumers complex, high-tech devices with enriched services that are nonetheless elegant and easy to use, a quest which the authors have labeled “Simplexity.” Based on their interviews and observations, the authors assert that, “Simplexity will be what truly empowers individual users through their mobile devices.

Filled with case studies exploring all aspects of the Japanese mobile industry, this unique publication points carriers and content and service providers towards successful business models and practices for today’s and tomorrow’s mobile Internet.

This book is the beginning of the conversation of The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business, which is regularly being updated and expanded upon at:www.siximmutablelaws.com

Summary: Great insights into business models for m-commerce

The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business will provide any professional or student of Mobile Commerce with great information and examples of how to utilise the mobile platform for commercial purposes. All three authers of the book are based in Japan. Hence they have had an opportunity to conduct their research in a market where the mobile industry and its consumers have been at the very forefront of the development and usage of the mobile internet.

Very shortly speaking the book will provide you with easy to read, easy to understand theoretical research of mobile business models, backed up by interviews conducted with some of the industry’s pioneering professionals.

First off the book will de-mystify the Japanese market and explain why the business models used by Japanese corporations might as well be used on a Global scale. Should you need more convincing that Japan is not so very special on a general note I’d recommend to read Yoshio Sugimoto’s book on Japanese society claiming that even though Japan is different in some aspects it is surely not as “uniquely unique” as popular belief will have it. Enough on that detour, back to Six Immutable.

Secondly the book brilliantly describes the “Ecosystem” model of Japanese company DoCoMo’s I-mode product. Without disclosing too much information this chapter will provide critical knowledge on why Apple’s IPhone is such a success and why the Android platform has the opportunity to be hugely successful as well. Being a non-industry expert this chapter was a real eye-opener for me.

Roughly speaking the rest of the book describes concepts and ideas to be aware of when designing business models and content for the mobile platform and the mobile internet. It all ends up with a model the authers somewhat popularly calls “Simplexity”. In plain words it is all about how exactly to deliver a simple-to-use product of value to consumers, albeit doing so on a highly complex platform.

I will highly recommend that anyone working with or studying mobile commerce to read this book. If you are simply just interested in the field the book is very good as well. Though you may not understand some of the technical jargon used on a few occasions that does not really matter. The book is not a technical one, but rather a book to provide you with general, useful insights.

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