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The new specifications, version 1.1, were released after members of the Wireless Village initiative announced successful interoperability testing of mobile instant messaging (IM) services based on the new standards. Founded by Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia in April 2001, the Wireless Village is a group of organisations that have come together to define and promote a set of universal specifications for mobile instant messaging and presence services (IMPS).
The group's latest interoperability testing, which took place in late June, was conducted between various mobile device clients and servers developed by several Wireless Village supporters. The success of the tests means that over the next few months, mobile users can expect new IM services to appear as operators and handset makers adopt the new standards. Participant companies in the latest tests included Comverse, Ecrio, Ericsson, Followap, Hotsip, Invertix, Logica, Motorola, Nokia, Openwave, OZ Communications and Magic4.
Until now, instant messaging has been a service used almost exclusively by PC users, letting them send text-based messages, images, sounds and even files through a private chat-room environment. It differs from its mobile-based cousins, SMS and MMS, in that IM is instant and always on.
In fact, IM on mobile devices has existed for a couple years. Yahoo made its Yahoo Messenger available on WAP more than two years ago, while O2 announced in February that it was making IM available in the UK over WAP. But these WAP services have been accused of being slow and cumbersome, and they lacked the interoperability that the Wireless Village initiative is looking to provide. Cost was also a problem due to the nature of WAP over 2G networks.
Many of the wireless developers that participated in the Wireless Village are looking to get past some of these issues with new services and products, such as Motorola Messenger from Motorola and UK-based Magic4's instant messenger client. Thanks to the Wireless Village, their systems will all be interoperable, easier to use and probably more widespread.
"We are just closing the loop; we are offering them [consumers] another way to communicate," explained Mike Kent, director of Central and Southern European Operations for Magic4. "Let's say you have one person on a computer and other with a PDA connected to a network and a third person with mobile phone. With instant messaging you can send a single message to everyone at once and you can all communicate with each other instantly."
"Why would anyone use instant messaging when SMS works so well? It's just another way to communicate; why does anyone use instant messaging when they can use e-mail?" Kent asked rhetorically. He went on to say that he expects mobile IM to start appearing on significant numbers of handsets by the first quarter of 2003. "This year will be all about MMS," Kent said, claiming that the service will be slow to take hold initially. He also claimed that IM will not usurp SMS or MMS to any large degree.
Nonetheless, even though IM standards are nearly universal, obstacles remain that could slow rollout, admitted Kent. Chief among these is billing, in so far as operators are yet to determine how to charge users for the service.
Though still operating as an independent body, the Wireless Village, along with the Location Interoperability Forum (LIF), MMS Interoperability Group (MMS-IOP), and SyncML Initiative Ltd, will soon move its activities into a larger organisation called the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), which was founded following a merger of the Open Mobile Architecture initiative and WAP Forum.
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