Determined to Build a World After Steve Jobs
Progress of IT society continues accelerating
In any case, the mobile telecommunications industry has fundamentally changed. As discussed above, manufacturers in the industry tried to reject participation by Internet carriers until the first half of 2000s in order to protect their business domain. The power relationships completely changed when iPhone first emerged, followed by Android. In short, the telecommunications and Internet industries have merged.
Until just two years ago, cell phone companies announced new services and functions of their phones. Today, however, all developments in the mobile telecommunications industry originate in Silicon Valley. Services unique to cell phone companies are trivial, and the Internet industry is leading the development of the telecommunications industry. Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. was a symbolic event, indicating that the hegemony over the telecommunications industry has completely shifted to the Internet industry.
The speed of the telecommunications industry’s development, which used to progress in small steps like the second generation, third generation and 3.9th generation, will be replaced by that of the Internet industry. A big service is likely to emerge every three to five years, the data rate will continue to accelerate and the number of available applications will surge. Steve Jobs triggered these changes.
Apple, which lost the great innovator who stated clear visions and offered services that link directly to human evolution, could for a while see its competence fall. But others who work for the company are likely to review the product groups Jobs left behind and the development processes, and continue searching for products and services that are linked to global progress. All of society may begin to generate products that conform to Jobs’ sense of values, to offer what users find most convenient. Companies other than Apple could emerge that conduct business in similar ways.
I personally would like to help change the world so that technologies available only for certain people will be offered to anyone. I have enjoyed reading science fiction novels since I was young, and I always fantasized about a world in which useful technologies are utilized effectively. I was involved in the development of i-mode, and in the process I harbored an ideal of packing everything that people carry with them into a cell phone. Game machines, wallets, credit cards, memo pads, telephone books, schedule notebooks, portable TV and radio, camera and much more. I wanted to create a world where all that people needed to carry with them is a cell phone.
When trying to accomplish something big, we must discern whether the wind is blowing with us or against us. Just as Steve Jobs discerned when the tide changed in the cell phone industry, if we are going to be successful we must take action when the wind is blowing with us while discerning progress not only in people’s abilities but also of technologies and other services.
In the rapidly changing and irregular IT society, no one knows what will happen three years from now. I do not think I can design my own life by myself, but my continuing wish is to create services that link directly with the development of our society. I intend to continue with my duties with the determination of establishing the world after Jobs, so as not to let his departure impede the development of IT society.
Translated from “Tekunorojii jushi no sekai niwa, wareware wa nidoto modorenai—Jobs-go no sekai wo tsukuru kakugo (We can never return to the technology-centered world—determined to build a world after Steve Jobs),” Voice, December 2011, pp. 153–160. (Courtesy of PHP Kenkyusho)
NATSUNO Takeshi (Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University)
Born in 1965. He is a graduate of Waseda University in Japan and holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the key developers of the i-mode business model, and managed the Japan launch of i-mode in 1999 when he was with NTT DoCoMo. He is on the board of directors of Dwango, Sega Sammy Holdings, SBI Holdings, Pia and Trans Cosmos (from 2008), and of Gree (from 2009).
