Text Messaging for Businesses
At Source O2's developer event today, the importance of text messaging (SMS) was emphasised. In fact, it is fair to say that SMS is the only data application that consumers seem interested in at the moment. The newest development is that businesses are beginning to see some benefits from texting, one-way to mobile workers for alerts and desk-to-person messaging, but also 2-way (interactive) stuff is gaining ground.
I had a chance to show Xsonic DataNow , our visual design tool for interactive SMS applications, to some of the O2 staff. All agreed it was a useful tool and would be of interest to companies. A point made in the seminars that I picked up on was the importance of trialling applications to get users familiar with new work practises, which is afterall what a successful mobile enterprise application should cause - new ways of doing work. So we are working on an effective trial program, but already our application has a texting emulator that enables full testing of applications without going wireless. Simply adding a GSM modem, like the Siemens TC35 will enable immediate wireless trials to take place, but we are adding a trial solution that uses net-hosted messaging. Customers can upgrade to higher throughput solutions should they need it (though many probably will not), either hosted or via their own gateway.
The Mobile Data Association has a useful website recently re-launched that is dedicated to text messaging promotion in the UK. It is worth a look.
8:17:02 PM 
|
