MMS Applications

Multimedia messaging is, as its name suggests, the ability to send messages comprising a combination of text, sounds, images and video to MMS capable handsets. The transition from Short Message Service (SMS) to Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is as important for mobile phones as the transition from DOS to Windows was for the PC. It represents a revolution. For multimedia messaging to succeed good applications have to be in place. It is applications that drive a technology, giving users a reason to grasp the concept of a service. Users will only use a service if there is a reason for doing so; applications give users a reason to use MMS.

MMS is an important technology, and has received a lot of media attention. Often analysts are worried MMS could be going down the same route as WAP, highlighting how the mobile industry is in danger once again of believing its own hype. WAP failed partly due network operators being the only people that made any money from it. Applications allow people to make money from a technology, creating multiple business models, with well-defined ways of making money. However, whereas WAP was a protocol technology, MMS is a service environment. The two are different types of mobile offering, hence scepticism is unwarranted.