from the inside, looking in

NTT DoCoMo has announced that it will be marketing the BlackBerry to enterprise users in Japan.

According to an article in IT media, enterprise users will have to set up their own BlackBerry Enterprise Server, there are no plans to offer a carrier based ASP service.

There are no plans to localise the handset UI or to offer a Japanese IME.
I wonder why DoCoMo even bother, given their announced halfhearted efforts. One potential benefit may be that overseas BlackBerry users travelling to Japan with W-CDMA compatible BlackBerries will be able to use their BlackBerries in Japan.

Given that virtually all Japanese phones have email (not just SMS/MMS) capability, and that there are various groupware/webmail applications (for both enterprise and individual use) which can be accessed by mobile phones, and the increasing distribution of full internet browsing capability, combined with the fact that Japanese phones have a Japanese (and often switchable English) UI and IME, I wonder how many people will actually bother. (Not me, for one. Yes, typing English via a ten key interface is a pain, but I find it is not nearly so bad for Japanese. Or is that just because I type in Japanese more than English? Hmmm.)