I first heard about i-mode sometimes around in February 2000, a since-then forgotten time when we Europeans were struggling with more-or-less crappy and unreliable mobile data access with the then glorified WAP service. Back then, the very ability of downloading-as-you-go and running fully-featured games and and having access to diversified content and information source from a click on your clamshell phone was at the very least extremely intringuing. And seeing over 5 million users in Japan at that time (growing to 42 million in Q1/2005 according to NTT DoCoMo) made it obvious that the Far East knew something in how to make mobile services technically viable and economically profitable. All of that starting with a startlingly simple yet profoundly new thinking from the mobile network operator: "to become profitable ourselves, we have to motivate and enrich the content providers", as explained by Takeshi Natsuno, the chief designer of the i-mode service at NTT DoCoMo.
Fast-forward to 2004, after having experienced i-mode myself in Japan (and in France, through Bouygue Telecom's licensing of the technology) and while studying about wireless and mobile network architectures in Sweden, I wrote a synthesis report on the technological and business characteristics of the i-mode ecosystem, which I'm happy to make available under a Creative Commons license.
If you are interested on the subject, I recommend that you read by NTT DoCoMo's own view of the service. Written by Natsuno san, The i-mode Wireless Ecosystem and i-mode Strategy are two excellent sources of information on how this radically new approach to mobile services emerged and managed to cross the chasm, both in Japan and now on a global level. And for a constantly updated insight on current developments, have a close look at the i-mode Business Strategy blog, a very informative source to track the evolution of i-mode on an international level.
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