Carriers thinking the wrong way with Instant Messaging on mobiles

Carriers need to learn that Instant Messaging on mobiles is not the killer app they are blindly searching for.

 

The key aspect of Instant Messaging that they should be focusing on is presence. Presence servers can be utilised to engage in many different user interactions. Some examples are where users can see if their friends are ready to play games, or begin a chat, co-workers can see if you are in a meeting or at a client’s site.

 

The ability for the network to accurately give presence information enables a completely new aspect to mobile communications. Further more, if this system is developed with a programming interface that enables other carrier services & 3rd party companies to utilise it, the Presence user experience will be seamless

 

Moconews has this link to an article on the International Herald Tribune site that talks about IM on mobiles and has comments from Gartner and Frost & Sullivan. Gartner gets it right that carriers need to work with existing IM communities and not try and build their own, but both companies loose the key focus that should be on deployment of Presence capability.

 

So, hopefully we shall all hear the end of "Hi are you busy right now?"

 

Technorati Tags – 3g – instant messaging – presence server – mobile applications – mobile im