DoCoMo and Google

1. Is DoCoMo wise to offer its existing mobile phone rivals access to FeliCa?
To simply answer this question, yes. FeliCa Networks, Inc. is split owned by Sony, DoCoMo and JR East. This means that DoCoMo will earn a portion of the revenues made by FeliCa. So by offering FeliCa to their rivals, DoCoMo will expand their sources of revenue by increasing FeliCa customer base. First, they will receive a licensing fee from the mobile phone carriers and by expanding this service to them will dramatically increase their income pool. Secondly, FeliCa will receive a fee whenever a user downloads an application through the network, in addition to other transaction fees. It is hard to say if this will have some negative effects for DoCoMo because they have free access to the network giving them a competitive advantage other their competitors.
2. Is search a winner-take-all business?
In a winner-take-all business usually has a dominant player in which controls the market. In order to control the market, they would need to have a superior product or technology. This is very similar to NASCAR, where the dominant car usually has the best technology available and at the end of the day is champion. Now looking at the search industry, we find that there are several major players, such as Google, Yahoo, Ask, and so on. By having so many players is market, it lowers switching and homing costs for the end user. While it may be that Google is the industry leader by a large margin, I don’t see it as a winner take all industry unless their search technology is so far advanced that it steals the entire market and I do not see that happening.