FRAMINGHAM, Mass.-Interoperability, difficult text entry and market awareness are today’s barriers inhibiting growth in the wireless instant messaging market, according to a report from industry analyst firm IDC.
“Carriers still have a fair amount of work ahead of them if they want to expand the viability of wireless instant messaging,” said Callie Nelsen, senior analyst with IDC’s Wireless and Mobile Communications research program. “Interoperability will be key to its success. Limiting instant messaging to just one carrier’s subscribers will not likely be highly valuable to users and will not greatly increase loyalty. It would be much more valuable to the carriers to cooperate and offer universal instant messaging.”
Even with increased awareness of instant messaging due to battles over interoperability in the wired market between Microsoft Corp. and America Online Inc., IDC said carriers still have to educate the market for wireless instant messaging. In recent IDC focus groups, participants struggled to think of instances when they would use wireless instant messaging, but once they realized it could be used in situations where talking was not appropriate, the appeal of wireless instant messaging instantly increased.
The report also noted that currently too much button pushing is required to enter text messages, and consumers are concerned with the prices they’ll be charged for instant messaging, expecting to save money by typing instead of talking.
“These problems aren’t insurmountable, and IDC does expect the market for wireless instant messaging to significantly grow,” Nelsen added.
