Ericcson has unveiled what it believes are the first enhanced messaging service compliant mobile phones released in Australia--the T29 and T20e.
Ericsson and a significant group of mobile handset manufacturers share the belief that EMS is the developmental step between text-based Short Messaging Service and Multimedia Messaging Service. It allows for the transmission of simple images, sound and user-defined animations over current mobile communications infrastructure.
Ericsson believes Enhanced Messaging Services will strengthen mobile service providers' revenue streams.
"The exchange of pictures and ring signals between mobile phones is expected to be massively popular and will create considerable network traffic," said the mobile manufacturer in a press statement.
EMS is an open technology standard developed by Ericsson and ratified by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project. Ericsson, despite its strong involvement in the creation of EMS, refused to adopt the standard until broad industry support for it could be guaranteed.
Last autumn, Alcatel, Siemens, Motorola and Ericsson committed to the standard bringing the lions share of the major handset manufacturers under its umbrella, the only notable exceptions being Nokia and Philips. Nokia has chosen to stick its own standard, Smart Messaging, which has provided EMS-equivalent functionality in the company's handsets for two years.
Nokia, which holds a 35% share of the global handset market, believes that adoption of the EMS specification is redundant and unnecessary for the in the evolution of mobile messaging services. "We don't see a need to implement it when the functionality already exists within Nokia Smart Messaging," said Greg Panikian, product manager for Nokia business terminals.
Panikian said that while Smart Messaging was a proprietary technology when it was originally developed in 1996 it's been an open standard for "several years".
"The next big jump will come with multimedia messaging services," he said. Multimedia Messaging Service will be available next year.
Philips seems reluctant to join the rush to implement advanced messaging services. The company has licensed a proprietary EMS-compatible technology from its own spin-off company, M@gic4. However, the technology won't reach Philips new handset line until Q1, 2002.
M@gic4 has is developed an enhanced version of their technology, M@gic4 SMC, that converts Smart Messaging content into Magic4 content, allowing Nokia and M@gic4 handsets to interoperate.
Ericsson T29 and T20e will retail for AU$520 and AU$358 respectively.
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