A couple of interesting titbits from this weeks I-mode newsletter...

NEC pulls out of Europe: ""NEC's varied range of 3G devices failed to compete when the bigger manufacturers came on line. NEC then spent some time with low-end devices such as the NEC E101 before concentrating more on i-mode devices for carriers such as O2. Despite being among the first to market with both 3G and i-mode handsets, NEC's impact on the market had declined to almost nothing.""

I'm not surprised; their handsets were uniformly awful; some of the recent I-mode ones got there as far as external design went, but the UI let it down badly.

A sign of operators trying out different structures for mobile content? "Since inking a partnership in February, Nippon TV and DoCoMo have been co-developing services and planning and producing special-purpose entertainment and broadcast content for broadcast TV, which is operating in Japan."

It's not surprising to see operators trying out different ways of structuring their content businesses, but I don't see why the TV model should necessarily be the one to pursue; why is TV the holy grail for content businesses?