Contextual messaging, id management, personal profile, call it what you will, could it be that messaging will be become an embedded service within other applications, rather than merely a standalone application in its own right?
It's a given golden rule of mobile that once you offer cross network interoperability to users for any given service, use rockets. Of course, the golden example is SMS (the bronze example is MMS) and operators hoped that by combining their efforts within the GSMA's Personal Instant Messaging Initiative, they would be able to sprinkle some of the same magic dust over instant messaging.
Yet in many countries, as Mobile Europe readers will know, mobile operators have side-lined their home grown "on-network" instant messaging applications, preferring instead to support existing offerings from Internet players such as Microsoft and Yahoo.
One of the few exceptions to this is Italian operator TIM, which launched Alice Messenger 18 months ago and is now seeing the service gain some traction.
Alessio Derme, senior product manager, marketing consumer, at TIM, told Mobile Europe last month that his company remained committed to the GSMA PIM initiative, and that TIM wished other operators were too.
The key benefit of PIM, as Derme sees it, is that it will bring interoperability between operators.
"We can't give our users an interoperable interconnection with other networks," said Derme. "It's something that we would like to change."
TIM's IM service is based on technology provided by NeuStar, including its gateway and IM service centre. And NeuStar is working with TIM on the issue of interconnecting with other operators, according to NeuStar sources. NeuStar also partners with operators that are running IM services from the Internet players, including Turkcell.Turkcell's ceo of value added services, Cenk Serder, was very visible at the recent Mobile World Congress, spending a lot of time talking to the press about his company's approach to a host of services. On instant messaging, he was making the point that in Turkey, where there are millions of Windows Live Messenger users, there is little point in trying to start up a specific, mobile operator focused service.
"We're the pioneer of IM, and actually started with a PIM based approach back in early 2006, but we changed horses at the end of 2007, and the reason is that it brings more internet services into play." Serdar said. "It's hard to ride against the tide, and MSN usage in Turkey is the third largest in the world, with 23 million accounts. MSN is so widespread that it was very hard to start something else and that's what we saw over the last two years." And Turkcell is not alone in Turkey in targeting those 23 million MSN/ Windows Live users with a gateway product.
Neustar's biggest rival as a technology enabler of mobile instant messaging, Colibria, is providing its technology to Avea, the fastest growing mobile operator in Turkey, which has launched a Windows Live Messenger service to its ten million mobile subscribers. Keith Gibson, CEO of Colibria commented, "Turkey is one of the most innovative mobile markets in the world. This is proven by the Windows Live Messenger service we're launching with Avea. Colibria has constantly demonstrated that it has the most innovative and flexible MIM solutions in the market today, illustrated by our track record of successful deployments throughout 2007."
?lker Koçak, CMO of Avea added, "With support from MSN, Windows Live Messenger solution was the obvious choice. Simple to implement and with the flexibility we demand to move fast, we're confident that this solution will help us continue our drive as the most innovative operator in the region." Koçak continued, "The appetite among our subscribers to be constantly in touch with their friends and family is growing and this is a key development in satisfying that hunger."
As for numbers around these stand-alone Instant Messaging launches, one example comes from Vodafone Portugal, which says it has carried over 150 million messages since it launched the service in July 2007. 3 UK says it has carried a billion since it launched, back in 2006.
But as long as the market exists to provide mobile gateway services to existing IM, desktop users, then it will necessarily be self-limiting.
With this in mind, the GSMA has taken another tack to its 2006 PIM initiative, this time launching an electronic numbering (ENUM) with a Number Resolution Service (NRS) that automatically translates a phone number into an IP-based address. The technology provider of the pilot is NeuStar, acting on the GSMA's behalf. Based on a Carrier ENUM approach, the GSMA, operators and NeuStar will pilot a Number Resolution Service (NRS) that automatically translates a phone number into an IP-based address, making it simple for users to initiate a wide range of IP-based communications via their existing phone numbers and contact books in their handsets. The system affords subscribers the same levels of control and privacy that they currently enjoy with existing telephone services.
The pilot will begin in the second quarter of 2008 as a forerunner to a commercial service to be launched later in the year. Participants in the pilot will include Bharti Airtel, mobilkom austria, Telekom Austria and Telenor.
"Consumers are accustomed to making voice calls or sending text and picture messages using their existing phone numbers by simply selecting a contact from the menu in their handset," said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer of the GSMA. "Our NRS service will enable operators to extend the universal reach and ease of use of phone numbers to a much wider range of IP-based services, such as Instant Messaging and Video Share."
The GSMA's NRS service is a so-called Private or Carrier ENUM solution and will include a global master root directory. This will enable operators to exchange ENUM data via a common commercial and technical framework, facilitating the rollout and interconnection of IP-services across network boundaries. Based on tried and trusted Domain Name Server (DNS) technology, this Carrier ENUM service will enable operators to route and exchange IP traffic of any kind using telephone numbers.
"Public" ENUM is an open Internet-based number translation directory where consumers can publish their addressing information. "Private" or "Carrier" ENUM is an enabler used by operators to associate the phone numbers of subscribers with the IP addressing information of the subscriber's IP-based services. This information is populated by the operator on behalf of the subscriber and is not made available to third parties except for the purposes of routing. The system enables IP-based calls and messages, addressed to a subscriber's phone number, to be delivered.
The benefit of this to operators is of course that it keeps the mobile number, the actual core identity, if you like, of a mobile user, at the heart of the converged communications world. Instead of users having to access separate accounts or profiles to send a message, a mobile number can be converted into an IP address.
This is critical, as operators grapple with enabling services, yet retaining control.
One forward thinking operator is the mobilkom Austria Group, which has announced it will launch SIP-enabled services in three of its subsidiary operators in the coming months using presence servers and XDM (XML Document Management) servers from Colibria. Deploying the SIP and XDM servers within mobilkom's IMS-based services environment will mean services can be presence-enabled and users will be able to share information such as profile details, status, availability and preferred methods of contact. Matt Hooper, vp marketing at Colibria, said the deployment would mean mobilkom would be able to develop truly converged services that are subscriber centric, rather than network or device centric. A1, VIPnet and Mobitel will all equip their networks with the technology as part of a group deal, with the first service to be enabled being A1's VoIP service. Hooper said that on the device side the operator could either deploy a softphone or a SIP based client on the device, and said that was "still in the mix".
"What we're talking about here is the initial stages to true convergence, with presence adding richness to the ability of people to connect according to their profile and in the appropriate form of contact, depending on their location, the device they are on and so on," Hooper said.
Although presence has been talked about for some time, Hooper said operators are really now seeing it as a strategic tool that offers them differentiation and service innovation, especially across fixed and mobile assets.
"It's really about moving the whole evolution of operator services to the next level," he said. "For mobile operators as a whole this is a fantastic way of adding differentiation they have to their assets, merging and running a very unified subscriber-centric environment." Although mobilkom has an IMS environment, Hooper added that the Enrich platform can also work in a non-IMS SIP environment. The use of the XDM server to enable sharing of service related data across services, for example, unified contact list and presence information, is also of note, Hooper said. "The XDM, in terms of its ability to enable address book level, dynamic sharing of data, could be as important in the network as the HLR/HSS," Hooper added. This is Colibria's first announced deployment of its Enrich platform, Hooper said, although the vendor has "a whole number of projects ongoing" he said.
Whichever approach operators take to enabling messaging in a converged environment, they need to move quickly. In Mobile Europe's feature on mobile social networking that follows this article, you can read how it is the core mobile address book that providers such as Yahoo!, but not only Yahoo!., are targeting. Of course, these companies are not about to cut the operators out of the action completely, because they know that it is still the operators that have the best channels to market at the moment, but they would be only too happy to do so if they could find another way to do so. Why can we say that with such certainty? Well, they wouldn't have to share their advertising revenues, for a start, and they would clearly love to build up the sort of services relationship with users in the mobile space they have done in the internet space. Again, if anyone doubts this, look at why Google is buying spectrum, developing a mobile OS and mobile applications environment.
If the first stage of mobile IM was about trying to deny its presence, and the second stage was about slowly getting closer to the internet providers, the third stage for mobile operators is going to be to think like internet providers themselves, putting messaging at the centre of whichever experience their users are having at the time, rather than treating messaging as a destination service in its own right.
Colibria calls it contextual messaging, as EVP of marketing Matt Hooper explains.
"The success of social networking and video sharing sites are clear indicators of the consumers desire to communicate between groups of people and share contextual information in a more interactive format," comments Matt Hooper, EVP Marketing at Colibria. "By combining MIM and Presence-enabled services with a variety of new and existing applications, Contextual Messaging enables the telecoms industry to serve, fuel and support the consumer demand for greater levels of interactivity and personal expression."