Will Aussie punters turn to SMS? - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Will Aussie punters turn to SMS?

By Vivienne Fisher, ZDNet Australia
March 26, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Will-Aussie-punters-turn-to-SMS-/0,130061791,120264238,00.htm

They've got it in the US, and in the UK. But are Australians really interested in buying products over SMS?

Aron Steg, managing director at start-up Psychic Software, believes so. Psychic has the licence from UK company Scan Mobile for a product that allows companies to sell their products using SMS, and is currently looking for partners to launch within Australia.

-Australian consumers love SMS - they're one of the fastest SMS markets in the world," according to Steg.

Although in the UK and US it is possible to buy movie and concert tickets, and console games via SMS, Steg envisages the buying of CDs or DVDs as the m-commerce applications that will prove popular with Australian users.

The idea is that companies market the service to their customers, who can then choose to purchase using SMS, making the transaction customer-initiated.

But what about when SMS messages aren't delivered instantly, a problem which has stopped SMS being viable for other applications, such as emergency services? Steg said that the system tries to deal with that as best it can. In the case of applications such as share trading, where time would be more crucial, the user could set up receiving a response to let them know whether or not the message had been received.

Although Steg said that the company was assessing other technologies, such as 3G, it's primarily focussing on SMS at the moment because it covers all mobile phones currently on the market.

Steg expects Psychic to sign its first customer within the next two to three months, and for the service to be available to customers within four to six months.