see below ...
> > I would like to draw your attention to the recent article I
> > published on http://www.mobiliser.org/article?id=49 about
> > how mobile Instant Messaging and Email will ultimately kill
> > the killer apps SMS and MMS.
>
> Well, it will happen when the telcos let it. Probably one day the
> European Docomo folks are going to start charging packet rates for
> e-mail (they currently inflate the cost of e-mail to protect SMS) and
> that will be the end of SMS.
>
> But it's not going to happen with Java apps. You can't keep the
> app running all the time, and when it's not running, your messages
> aren't "instant" any more, are they?
>
> (Though I suppose you could send an SMS asking someone to log in....)
firstly, I confirmed with eplus/i-mode Germany the following:
they only charge packet fees for sending and receiving email now
which is a huge price advantage compared to email already. they
extended their packet offer of 1MB = 1 Euro until end of september
and will then decide what to do. this is, in fact, heavy price
competition now happening in the young GPRS market but it confirms
the theses I raised in my article.
drawback of i-mode mail in Germany is that you can only use
your i-mode email account and not pop any mail server you want.
but we will see premium i-mode services offering such thing
in Germany soon.
secondly, there are mobile devices featuring Java that can do
multitasking, e.g. the popular Nokia 7650 as they run on 32bit
Symbian OS. with such a device I am sure IM can easily replace
SMS.
jan michael hess.
Received on Fri Aug 30 16:37:19 2002