Will Email Or SMS Rule Mobile?
Which technologies will dominate the enterprise messaging space? Some analysts believe that the advent of mobile e-mail will canibalise SMS revenues and space in the market. However, co-existence between these two technologies is more than possible, as SMS and mobile e-mail provide views of mobile services which target different audiences, with completely different features and benefits.
Small For A Reason?
Mobile e-mail is a value-added service and so far has been an attractive and fashionable market in which more and more players are jumping into it, such as RIM, Seven, Ericsson, Oracle and even Microsoft. However, the size of the market is still small, with a penetration rate of less than 1% in terms of world’s total mobile user base.
Although mobile e-mail is supported by the latest developments in mobile communications market, with a high level of security in the exchange of data, this technology is only common among highly paid professionals. The high cost attached to the service does not allow corporations to deploy such solution in different levels of the organisation to reach entire or part of the staff. The result is that mobile e-mail is not able to create a measurable impact in corporate processes and communications. The mobile extension of the fixed-line e-mail is still not able to improve performance in different levels of corporations.
Total Cost of Ownership
Due to its ubiquity and the fact that almost everyone knows how to send a message, SMS provides corporates with a mobile solution that can create real impact in corporate processes and communications. Besides being easy and simple to use, SMS has a low total cost of ownership in terms of training and maintenance. Because of these features, SMS can be deployed in all levels of the company, improving the internal flow of communication among staff. This makes SMS even more attractive for businesses who wish to optimise processes and improve communications at a low cost.
Beyond the simplicity and economy provided via SMS deployment, currently SMS can be implemented with high quality standards of data transmission, providing guarantees of message delivery in a total reliable and secure environment. The “business-grade” SMS goes beyond “consumer” SMS, allowing it to be applied for mission-critical exchange of data, such as airlines (communication with aircrews), logistics (tracking geographically dispersed people and assets) and even rescue and emergency alerts.
Mobile e-mail has the price issue as the main barrier for a more massive implementation of the technology in the enterprise scenario. However, it tends to increase as soon as there are more competitors and the prices fall. The growth in mobile e-mail, however, will not cannibalise SMS revenues or its space in the messaging arena. Both technologies will co-exist and estimulate the growth of each other. The proof is that SMS is the used channel in mobile e-mail devices to let the user know that there is a new e-mail in the inbox.
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Tags: Mobile e-mail, Premium Services, SMS