press conference on Thursday.
A hundred million units is a lot. It's comparable to today's entire smartphone market. But Panasonic is, at least publicly, placing its bet on Android and other open-source platforms to replace today's "feature phones" -- industry jargon for dumbphones that aren't smartphones -- and to aggressively compete with other smartphones, mainly iPhones and BlackBerrys.
Despite Ishii's boostery talk on Android, Panasonic didn't actually introduce or pre-announce any open-source phones at the event. The only Android phone from a major Japanese carrier is NTT's HT-03A, made by HTC. Ishii declined to specify when Panasonic would actually enter the market.
[Image by Rich Dellinger from richd.com]
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