Funk is a professor of business at Hitosubashi University in Japan. For the last ten years, he has also been doing studies as a consultant to the mobile phone industry in Japan. He is a member of the Global Mobility Roundtable, which is an international research group on the mobile Internet.

For the book’s title, the author borrowed the term “disruptive technologies” from Clayton Christensen [1]. In chapter 1, Funk points out several disruptive features of new technologies, from transistor radios to the mobile Internet, that have changed the applications of the technologies in society in some surprising ways that were not anticipated by the initial developers of those technologies.

To prepare this book, the author interviewed many knowledgeable personnel in the mobile phone and mobile Internet industries, especially in Japan. Most of the data and examples in the book are taken from information and data he collected in his research in Japan, where the young people are the leading users of mobile phones and the mobile Internet. Most of this data was current up to the middle of 2003, so readers should be careful in extrapolating it to situations in 2004. At the same time, these developments may or may not apply to Western countries, such as those in Europe and North America. However, the many trends stemming from the disruptive influence of the mobile Internet in Japan should not be ignored by the strategic and tactical planners of mobile Internet providers in the rest of the World.

The main emphasis of this book is on the mobile Internet, based on mobile phones (or similar platforms). The first eight chapters concentrate on the use of this hardware platform. Even though second generation (G2) and third generation (G3) mobile phones are being introduced with color screens, digital cameras, and up to 1 GHz processors, they cannot be compared with PC-based Internet access.

Chapter 1 presents a good introduction to the mobile phone-based mobile Internet, as introduced in Japan, and to the various disruptive technologies that led to the mobile Internet. The last part of the chapter provides a thumbnail summary of all the chapters in the book. Chapter 2 summarizes the origins of the mobile Internet, by tracing the evolution of the mobile, and its usage penetration in most industrial countries. With the introduction of ring tones and screen savers, mobile phones evolved into game/horoscope devices, entertainment and general information sources, database access points, and online transaction devices.

Chapter 3 presents a summary of the key technological trends of the mobile phone-based mobile Internet. These include ring tone downloads; color displays; size of display; camera phones; network and processing speeds; memory size; user interface issues, such as the use of the Java programming language versus compact Hypertext Markup Language (HTML); and other network technologies. This last section includes wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi), broadband wireless (WiMAX), wireless local area networks (WLAN), Bluetooth, and other wireless network protocols that can accommodate PC or handheld PC-based mobile Internet. The author returns to some of these technologies in chapters 9 and 10.

In chapters 4 through 8, Funk goes on to provide more detail on mobile phone-based mobile Internet applications, as they have evolved in Japan. In Japan, mobile phones become portable entertainment players, with multimedia capabilities, supported by micropayments charged to phone users. They also become marketing devices, both as contact points for customers, and by providing phone users with discount coupons via short message service (SMS). New and existing firms are attempting to integrate mobile Internet services with other media, such as magazines, radio, and TV programs. Navigation services are another disruptive use. These services include both map-based nonglobal positioning service (GPS) applications and GPS-based applications, including business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) services. Finally, the author speculates that phones will eliminate physical cash within the next ten to 20 years, based on the fact that, in Japan, mobile phone users already use them to buy tickets and make small payments.

In chapter 9, Funk discusses the use of mobile intranet applications, using mobile phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs) as the platform for mobile communications. These applications are being used by transportation, delivery, and trucking businesses. The author divides this development into three stages, with the involvement of many large firms in Japan. Chapter 10 discusses platform strategies for the mobile Internet. Though most of the applications discussed above focus on mobile phones as their preferred platforms, PDAs and handheld PC can become the right platforms when new technologies introduce surprise disruptive effects.

There are some notes and references at the end of each chapter, and a usable index at the end of the book. This book should be a good reference for those who wish to learn more about the fast evolving areas of the mobile Internet.