Having made partners of most wireless handset OEMs with its T9 Text Input technology, Tegic Communications Inc. said it plans to make customers of wireless carriers with a new instant messaging application, as yet unnamed.
The current desktop version of Tegic’s instant messaging notifies Internet users when other members of a buddy list log online, and allows them to send messages to one another, no matter where each user is on the Web.
Tegic’s expressed goal is to extend this desktop instant messaging to mobile phones, so a computer Internet user can send an instant message to a friend’s wireless phone.
Instant messaging is a popular application for Internet users, such as America Online customers, who transmit some 780 million instant messages a day, Tegic said. A recent report by Mobile Insights predicts the worldwide market for instant messaging could reach 175 million users by 2002.
Tegic’s planned solution will allow customers to set up similar buddy lists on their phones, receive notification of which buddy-list members are either logged online or have activated their wireless phone, and then be able to send friends a text message or call them.
“Five years from now, the interface to most cell phones and wireless (personal digital assistants) will include a buddy list,” said Jerry Michalski, president of industry analyst firm Sociate. “These buddy lists will transform the way people communicate and help them to avoid the necessity of making real-time, two-way phone calls to handle simple communications.”
Tegic said it hopes to make the technology compatible with all major desktop Internet messaging systems, such as those used by AOL. Also, to send instant messages to other users with the same technology, Tegic said the solution will be compatible with most major networks-such as Code Division Multiple Access, Global System for Mobile communications and Time Division Multiple Access. The company said the solution will allow users on a CDMA system to send instant messages to a friend on a GSM system.
“Integrated wireless communications will be the catalyst that leads to the pervasive use of mobile information appliances,” said David Hayden, senior industry analyst at Mobile Insights. “Instant messaging on these wireless handheld (computers) and mobile phones will become as commonplace as voice mail in only a few years.”
This effort marks Tegic’s addition of a new customer base-carriers. Its T9 Text Input product, which allows phone users to enter text using one key press per letter, has proven widely popular by phone manufacturers. But while T9 is an original-equipment-manufacturer product only, the instant messaging application requires implementation both on the client side and on the carrier server side.
As such, Tegic will add licensing revenue from carriers with the new product.
“It’s a natural progression for the product,” said Jaymelina Esmele, Tegic public relations. “We’ve always had a great relationship with carriers, because they were the ones pushing OEMs to adopt T9.” So it was only a matter of time before Tegic began marketing directly to carriers, she added.
Handset OEMs can obtain the client-side technology in several forms: as a Wireless Application Protocol application, a GSM SIM application or bundled with T9 Text Input software.
The as-yet unnamed technology remains in development, with plans to begin field trials on wireless networks next quarter and commercial deployment next year.
