

SMS are going away, so are the revenues - sinzone
http://www.fabcapo.com/2011/06/sms-are-going-away-so-are-revenues.html

======
dexen
N900 has IMs and SMSes integrated into one UI, one application. Several
protocols are supported, from Skype through Nokia's own Ovi to polish local
Gadu Gadu (that via installable plugin). Same with contacts: both GSM and IM
contacts are part of normal contact card. Pretty neat feature, but once you
see it, it seems pretty much in line with other features. The application's
called `Conversations'. Coolest thing ever, if friend's IM profile provides an
avatar, it's added to contacts automagically.

Why is Apple hailed for introducing that feature now, when N900 had it in
November 2009? Or is it that iPhone gets it better, integrates tighter?

To be honest, my reaction mid-article was literally ``What The Eff? I've been
using just that for over a year now on N900; why is it described like a
novum?''

~~~
wmf
Given that _every article_ calls iMessage a clone of BBM, I don't think anyone
is claiming that Apple just invented IM. What people are claiming is that
iMessage will reduce SMS volume by _billions_ , which the N900 cannot do
because nobody has an N900.

~~~
mvalle
It will reduce SMS volume by the same amount as it will reduce the Email
volume.

My friend has an iPhone. I have an Android. My friend wants to send a short
message to me. Will she use iMessage? No. Email or SMS.

------
Tichy
Everybody is a visionary one day after WWDC. Maybe that is the secret of the
Apple reality distortion field.

------
Shenglong
It's too much work to keep track of what phones your friends have. I have 200+
people on my contact list, and I think maybe only 4-5 of them don't use
smartphones. It may take off if Apple makes their messenger available for all
systems, and people actually download it.

You also need to remember, that a large amount of texters are students. Many
of my friends send over 4000 texts a month, while I'm running slightly under
2000. On a student plan, unlimited texting in Canada is just bundled into the
voice+data package. I haven't been to the states for a while, so I'm not quite
sure how they're doing it.

Even if texting does die, it'll die slowly. It's just too much of a hassle to
be a hardcore first-adopter for these changes, even if it is cheaper.

~~~
teilo
iMessage automatically uses SMS for all devices not registered in iCloud. What
it will do is eliminate all messaging charges between newer iPhones. This is a
significant percentage. Competition will take care of the rest.

~~~
WrkInProgress
That is a great feature (automatically choosing the protocol).

I believe Windows Phone's latest update (Mango) will also use something like
this but it will automatically jump between Windows Live Messenge, SMS, and
Facebook Chat.

WebOS was the first to have just a "Messages" app (I believe it worked with
SMS, AIM, ICQ and GChat/GTalk) that allowed you to have a conversation between
a person over different protocols/services, but it was not automatic. Not sure
if this has been changed for WebOS 3.0

------
orenmazor
I can't wait. based on my plan, I currently play $0.005 per goddamn SMS, and
$0.000005 per kb.

the vast majority of the people I communicate with regularly are on an iphone
or android, and many of them refuse to switch to beluga because they don't
want to deal with beluga AND sms (multiple vectors). if imessaging is open
protocoled, and transparently handles non-imessage reciepents, then this would
solve a lot of problems for me*

*extra points if I can finally reply to sms/imessage via my desktop. I hate pulling my phone out when I'm at the computer.

~~~
pinhead
I agree, it would be awesome to have an open standard for sms. It is ludicrous
that phone companies have been able to charge so much for sms as long as they
have.

One somewhat nice solution for desktop sms is google voice, it's pretty handy
but not the ideal solution I think you and many of us are looking for.

------
billybob
"I spoke a few years back to a fax manufacturer who said the same thing about
email"...

Yeah, the funny thing is, SMS came along after email, and is both worse and
more expensive.

------
bradleyland
Let's see if I follow this:

* iMessage is going to kill SMS * iMessage is very similar to BBM * BBM has not killed SMS

How, again, is iMessage going to kill SMS?

~~~
extension
BBM surely puts a dent in SMS usage on Blackberries, but not as much as it
could. That's because it puts the burden on users to figure out that the
person they want to chat with also has a Blackberry _and_ to get their PIN
from them. Unless they know both of these things, they will use SMS.

iMessage, on the other hand, replaces SMS. It's the one and only way to send
text messages on the iPhone and it will avoid SMS whenever possible. Users
won't even think about what underlying protocol they are using. But they may
notice that texting between iPhones has nifty new features and doesn't show up
on their phone bill. Apple is trying to take users out of the game. If that
happens, it becomes just a technical battle that SMS can't win.

However, SMS won't completely die until _all_ the phones are using the same
federated IM protocol. We're not going to have The One True Phone any time
soon so I wish they would all just swallow their pride and standardize on XMPP
or whatever. If just Google and Apple did this, they could probably kill off
both SMS and Blackberry. Seems to me that would be worth cooperating on.

~~~
bradleyland
"iMessage, on the other hand, replaces SMS. It's the one and only way to send
text messages on the iPhone and it will avoid SMS whenever possible. Users
won't even think about what underlying protocol they are using."

Now that is a great point. I wasn't aware that iMessage replaced SMS entirely.
I assumed that it was a separate app.

I don't think the impact of it being the _default_ method of sending messages
can be understated.

~~~
karipatila
It replaces SMS when the recipient has a device that supports it. Otherwise
it'll just send an SMS. The send button is green for SMS and blue for
iMessages. But the point is indeed that the user doesn't have to think twice
about it.

------
zitterbewegung
iPhones are just the smartphone market. More like SMS's are going away for
smartphones but staying for everyone else. Not everyone has an smartphone and
not everyone can afford a dataplan.

~~~
JacobAldridge
Yet.

(And in emerging markets, it may be 10 years, I get that, but ... yet.)

~~~
nasmorn
The only people I call which don't have smartphones are my grandmother and my
father in law. I got one friend with a blackberry and one with an Android
Phone. Every other one has an iPhone. This includes friends of my wife, mom,
dad, even my mother in law who is close to 70. Granted I am from Austria where
cell plans with data are 15 dollars a month and which has the second highest
iPhone penetration in the world. But usually what happens here moves to
Germany 3 years down the line (in mobile phones only). SMS are virtually free
anyway as we get 100s or 1000s included. The network is good and the companies
still make money so I guess the carriers dont need to move anywhere if they
are content to be a commodity business. They will need to sell some of the
swanky shops they have on the streets and become a little more like my ISP.

------
marksbren
With the fragmentation of mobile operating systems, this move will take quite
a while. As long as Apple, Google and RIM do not allow cross-platform
messaging outside of SMS, SMS will still stay strong. I will always have
friends who are using Android & other platforms and SMS is still the only way
to communicate with them all.

------
fps
Google has had jabber/gtalk integrated into Android since Day 1. It's push and
the interface is fantastic. There's a web client built into every gmail user's
inbox, and scads of desktop clients.

SMS is still here.

Now, if appleuser@me.com could jabber chat with googleuser@gmail.com across
networks, this would be news.

------
morizzle
Gtalk's been working great for me for years now.

~~~
nodata
The GTalk Android app only supports one account concurrently which makes it a
deal-breaker for people who use business and personal accounts.

------
jamaicahest
Nope. Not going away. Just like Skype didn't kill normal calls and replacing
SMS has been attempted years and years ago. Even when MSN was introduced,
carriers started charging a subscription for it.

------
ben1040
Perhaps AT&T saw this coming and is trying to put up some fences around the
high-margin SMS plans. Recently they started offering unlimited calling to any
mobile regardless of network.

The catch is that you also must carry an unlimited SMS plan ($20/month on an
individual line or $30 on a share plan).

~~~
bshep
I just hope they don't make data plans even more expensive than they are now.

Thankfully I'm still grandfathered into the unlimited plan, but I have a
feeling they are going to make it harder and harder to stay on this plan as
time goes on.

------
shaggy
Pro-tip: SMS isn't going away.

------
makmanalp
Great, just what we needed, even more overpriced data plans.

------
drivebyacct2
I need to blog. I could have called all this crap ages ago. iMessage is
amazing, but not one person has mentioned Google Voice.

~~~
seles
Yes, SMS is not going anywhere as a result of this. Google voice has been
around, and it already enables SMS less SMSs but doesn't suffer the weakness
iMessage does: google voice is inter-operable with other carriers.

The reasons google voice didn't replace SMS completely is:

-it uses data, and sometimes your signal is too weak to use data

-text plans are usually bundled with data plans so they are effectively free anyways (for many people)

-an SMS sent without signal will send when it does get signal, but google voice does not (although this is not a technical hurdle)

