(February 11, 2002) - NTT DoCoMo has notified the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications in Japan of their latest new service: a portal site for wireless PDAs.

Together with their 8 regional companies, DoCoMo plans from March 1 to make their new service - branded "Infogate" - accessible by browser-equipped PDAs connected to any (DoCoMo) PDC, PHS, or DoPa mobile phone. There will be a wide variety of content and applications available, the company says, from general information such as news, weather, banking, and maps, to online applications such as groupware.

Infogate will allow DoCoMo to take advantage of the increasing popularity of PDA devices in Japan. It follows the launch of their 3G mobile service, FOMA, offering high-speed data transmission in packet and circuit-switched modes.

For the enterprise, there's to be an interesting feature: "Live! Information Distribution Function" - it doesn't sound quite so exhilarating translated literally into English like this, alas - which will allow both general news and company-specific information (current inventories, and so on) to be automatically updated to users' PDAs via e-mail. So corporations, DoCoMo hopes, will want to use Infogate to provide PDA-equipped employees in remote locations with exclusive access to company information.

Maybe the Japanese and the U.S. markets will soon resemble one another much more than at present, as the U.S.A introduces more consumer services...while Japan gets to grips with wireless in the enterprise. WBT will go on keeping its industry eyes on both sides of the Pacific.