"The most important thing about MMS is the potential it has to change users' behavior," says Ian James, who works with Mobile Internet Marketing Strategy within Ericsson. "In the minds of ordinary people, going from SMS to MMS is a simple evolution: it's the same as SMS but with pictures, even though behind the scenes it requires a major change in technology."

According to EMC Worldwide Cellular Data Matrix, more than 100 operators have already launched MMS services worldwide.

Ericsson is the world leader in MMS technology with an estimated 40% market share and more than 50% of the global subscriber base.

Jason Andersson, Manager of Business Development at Ericsson's MMS Product Development Unit says that Ericsson's world-leading position can be attributed to its end-to-end perspective. "Ericsson's MMS solution incorporates products and resources from all parts of the organization, including handsets, infrastructure enablers, content, and systems integration services."

Getting content to the mobile handset is another vital ingredient to the success of MMS and, ultimately, for 3G.

Andersson says: "We are looking for ways to simplify the implementation of content for operators. Ericsson is helping operators get more value from their networks through new services and applications such as push messaging, automated data-generated graphics, virus protection, spam blocking and load balancing."

As well as basic person-to-person picture messaging, several operators are offering "application-to-person" information services, incorporating MMS images, to which users may subscribe.

Operator Sunrise in Switzerland, for example, offers MMS services in which subscribers can elect to receive a daily or weekly Garfield cartoon, use an enhanced dating service including photos, and receive illustrated horoscopes.

Italian operator Telecom Italia Mobile offers access to information on Italian football matches, TV program vignettes and Disney animated cards as part of its mobile multimedia services.

MMS brings added value to cross-media mobile multimedia services, for example sports enthusiasts watching a game on TV could use MMS to receive additional player and team statistics or alternative camera angles of a goal. Another application will use the latest traffic-status information and knowledge of location to generate a map of the quickest route to a destination, or even to display where the user's friends are located.

The possibilities of MMS are only just starting to be investigated. The initial success stories are often the result of building on existing popular services ? adding images and audio to basic text services ? to enhance the user experience. A similar evolutionary approach will be taken when 3G makes higher bandwidth applications possible.


Lars Hansen