Softbank inks deal with Yahoo! for mobile Web

Softbank's mobile unit has teamed up with Yahoo! to use portal site from the browser for direct connections to the Internet. Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son said: "Users are not satisfied with the small, limited content of current DoCoMo, i-mode or au EZweb services... I want to bring the broad world of the Internet, with Yahoo! as the center, to the mobile world." Son's plans are ambitious: He wants to make a full browser that can display Internet Web sites as they are shown on PCs. He also said the company, which recently acquired the Japanese unit of Vodafone Group, is not going to offer optical fiber services in the short term.

Of course, every carrier is interested in offering a full browser that brings PC Internet functionality to the mobile platform, but few have figured out a way to make the content fit on the phone's tiny screen. The dotMobi domain, which just launched, enforces strict guidelines for mobile versions of existing Web sites, but critics say directing consumers to both a .com site and a .mobi site is a marketing nightmare. Others contend repurposing technologies that recognize a consumer's device and reconfigure the Web pages accordingly are the key to the mobile Internet, but I've yet to see one that works well. Maybe Yahoo! and Softbank figured it out--but The Wall Street Journal didn't provide any screenshots.

For more on Softbank and Yahoo!'s partnership:
- see this WSJ article (sub. req.)