page_title: SoftBank Group
section_title: J-PHONE
hierarchical_section_title: SoftBank Group / SoftBank Corp. / J-PHONE
caption_attribution_description: 99年、当時のデジタルツーカーからリリースされたソニー製TH291。66gと兎に角軽いのが特徴。当時、ストレート携帯にありがちだったポッケに入れていたときに間違ってボタンが押ささる（長押しロックも解除されちゃう）誤動作をスライド式のロックスイッチで防いだのは素晴らしい。 いわゆる「くるくるピッピッ」携帯で、ジョグダイヤルがエラく使いやすかった。右に回す、左に回す、押す、奥側に押す、の４方向に動くのと、そのハードウェアの動きをうまく導くソフトウェアの優秀さが合わさった名機です。 本体はシルバーだったのをブラックに交換。この携帯は長らく愛用しました。
context_page_description: SoftBank Group Corp. is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Tokyo. SoftBank owns stakes in many technology, energy, and financial companies. It also runs Vision Fund, the world's largest technology-focused venture capital fund, with over $100 billion in capital.
  The company is known for its leadership by founder Masayoshi Son. It operates in broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-commerce, internet, technology services, finance, media and marketing, semiconductor design, and other areas.
  SoftBank was ranked in the Forbes Global 2000 list as the 36th largest public company in the world, and the second largest publicly traded company in Japan after Toyota.
  The logo of SoftBank is based on the flag of the Kaientai, a naval trading company that was founded in 1865, near the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, by Sakamoto Ryōma.
  Although SoftBank does not affiliate itself to any traditional keiretsu, it has close ties with Mizuho Financial Group, its main lender.
context_section_description: The roots of SoftBank's mobile communications arm date back to the formation of Japan Telecom in 1984. The Digital Phone Group (デジタルホン, DPG, three local companies) mobile phone division was formed in 1994, and J-PHONE Co., Ltd. (J-フォン) was formed in 1999 by the merging of DGP with Digital TU-KA Group (DTG, six local companies, not to be confused with TU-KA). Japan Telecom owned a stake of 45.1%.
  J-PHONE grew steadily for a decade by continuously introducing new services and enhancements such as SkyWalker for PDC, SkyMelody ringtone download, the famous Sha-Mail picture mail introduced on the basis of camera phones developed by SHARP, the mobile multimedia data service J-Sky modeled after NTT DoCoMo's i-mode, and advanced Java services based on JSCL, modeled after NTT DoCoMo's DoJa based i-appli.
caption: Sony TH291 cellular phone for the Digital Tu-Ka operator
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