Enterprise Mobility: NEC Lifetouch W, Ultrabooks, Kyocera Digno at CEATEC

Japan's CEATEC conference is giving local companies the chance to show off some of their latest devices, not all of which will reach the U.S. market. That being said, given many of those companies' international nature, more than a few are likely to find their way onto the global stage at some point. As in the United States, there's an emphasis on slim and light: Intel-loaded "ultrabooks from Toshiba and other companies are designed to pack a lot of power into a portable package, while Mitsubishi and other manufacturers are pushing very thin televisions with large screen sizes and ultra-high resolution. That being said, some form-factors and designs here are clearly designed with solely the domestic market in mind. In a trend that hasn't quite taken hold in the United States, for example, a number of devices on display feature a dual-screen configuration—in particular tablets made by Sony and NEC. Kyocera is offering a super-thin smartphone, the Digno, which is supposedly waterproof—again, a feature not really touted for U.S. smartphones. However, these companies are also very focused on hardware; as you walk around the CEATEC show floor, operating systems are almost uniformly either Windows (for the PCs) or Android (for tablets and smartphones). Executives from Japanese companies are advocating a move into software and services, but, with some isolated exceptions such as Toshiba's cloud-based media storefront, there seems to be a lack of concrete projects in this area. Based on the conversations here, though, that seems likely to change.