America Online Inc. took its AOL Anywhere strategy further into the wireless space last week with the introduction of its AOL Mobile Messenger service, created through several strategic deals with several wireless carriers and device manufacturers.
AOL’s Mobile Messenger service is designed to extend access to AOL’s e-mail and instant messaging services from wireless messaging devices. To enable this, AOL struck deals with carriers BellSouth Wireless Data L.P. and Arch Communications Group Inc., as well as wireless messaging device manufacturers Motorola Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd.
The Mobile Messenger service was developed specifically to extend AOL Mail and AOL Instant Messenger applications to paging devices, so users may check their e-mail and exchange instant messages. In the future, the companies hope to add other AOL content services as well.
Separately, phone manufacturers Nokia Corp. and NeoPoint Inc. have agreed to develop a version of AOL’s Instant Messenger for their wireless handsets, independent of the Mobile Messenger service.
According to the agreement, RIM will make an AOL-branded version of its Inter@ctive line of two-way wireless data handheld devices for use on BSWD’s Mobitex network, while Motorola will do the same for Arch’s ReFLEX two-way paging network.
The devices and services are expected to be available commercially by the second half of the year. Pricing was not disclosed.
The final distribution plan is not yet complete, but the players involved expect AOL initially will market the service and devices to its 21 million customers.
“For us, it’s an absolutely huge step forward,” said Steve Gross, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Arch. “We’re feeling better and better every day that our technology is going to be the way the Internet is extended wirelessly.”
Gross added that Arch did not feel the AOL-branded devices will present any customer ownership issues, or that Arch’s brand will be overpowered by AOL.
“We expect this to be a very significant deal for us, economically,” he said. “Do you know how many customers we’re going to have on our network because of this deal, as opposed to if we’d just presented our own brand alone? AOL’s brand and marketing power is huge.”
AOL said its members trade more than 110 million e-mails and more than 600 million instant messages every day. This is expected to increase when wireless handsets are added to the mix.
Once the technology is added, pagers using the Mobile Messenger service-as well as phones from Nokia and NeoPoint with the Instant Messenger technology-may trade instant messages on their wireless devices with AOL users online on computers. This includes access to Buddy Lists, a function of the Instant Messenger technology that notifies AOL users when a friend also on the service has logged online. With Instant Messenger-enabled devices, AOL users also can be notified when members of their Buddy List activate their wireless devices, meaning they are available for an instant message or e-mail.
AOL’s interest in adding instant messaging capabilities to wireless phones first manifested itself when it acquired Tegic Communications Inc., creator of both Instant Messenger and T9 Text Input technologies. Instant Messenger is an embedded application bundled with the T9 technology, which allows phone users to enter text into their devices by pressing buttons only once for each desired letter.
While Nokia and NeoPoint already license the original version of the T9 text input technology, they are upgrading to include the Instant Messenger application.
As the wireless messaging devices in question have full Qwerty keyboards, the Mobile Messenger service adds the Instant Messenger technology independent of the T9 Text Input technology.
AOL’s Mobile Messenger service is the latest step in the company’s AOL Wireless strategy, which in turn is a key component of its AOL Anywhere mission. In yet another step, AOL also joined the Wireless Application Protocol Forum. Most recently, RTS Wireless, which develops wireless Internet software systems, said it will license its Advantage suite of wireless data and text-to-voice software and related consulting services to AOL.
Capping AOL’s wireless-related announcements, the company agreed to provide content to Sprint PCS’ Wireless Web service. This deal goes far beyond the Mobile Messenger or AIM licensing agreements. While Sprint will have the same access to AOL’s e-mail and instant messaging applications, the company also will extend AOL’s news and other information content to its subscribers, wirelessly enabling the entire AOL Internet portal.
Driving AOL’s interest in the wireless space is recent research suggesting about 70 percent of all AOL households own a wireless phone or pager, or both. The AOL Anywhere strategy also includes AOL TV.
AOL recently completed several deals through its AOL Europe affiliate with Nokia, Ericsson and RTS Wireless to make its portal compatible with current short message service, General Packet Radio Service and Wireless Application Protocol technologies for wireless transmission.
