In a unique initiative, CMG, Comverse, Ericsson, Logica, Motorola, Nokia and Siemens has unveiled a common vision for next generation Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS), hailed as the future of messaging. The objective is to raise overall awareness of MMS and to ensure consistent market development into an open global market.
According to Comverse South Africa managing director Stuart Eveleigh, MMS is driven by active individuals creating content and sharing experiences through multiform communication that combine new forms of rich content, such as audio and video clips, photographs and images with text messaging. "MMS adds new functionality and new content types in small steps that consumers will readily understand and enjoy. This will lead to rapid adoption and penetration of the service," he explains.
"Each of the companies believe MMS will be a key mass-market service for mobile operators, content providers, application developers and advertisers alike. Owing to the rapid uptake of messaging services by various market segments, the concept of MMS is appealing for all users. In addition to MMS being a key person-to-person service, it will also be a channel for media content and other applications," he adds.
SMS services have been the fastest growing mobile data services with notable impact on operator revenue and profit. According to the GSM Association, the worldwide SMS traffic amounted to 15-billion messages in December 2000 alone. MMS will offer a natural evolution of the SMS business model, generating new revenue streams from the existing customer base while attracting new customers. Messaging in the form of MMS will lead the way to profit in 2.5/3G just like SMS has done in 2G.
"MMS is a 3GPP and WAP Forum standardised service that can interoperate with existing mobile SMS devices and other messaging applications. MMS can be seamlessly integrated into existing services and brought directly to a large customer base. By planning the MMS implementation today, the early movers will be well positioned to take advantage of 2.5/3G technologies and applications," Eveleigh explains.
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