Ever heard of EMS, or Enhanced Messaging Service?
If not, don’t worry-few people have.
It was created as an extension to the short message service messaging technology that has taken the worldwide wireless industry by storm. The idea was to “enhance” SMS messages with more space for text, simple graphics and even a few sounds. The thinking was that EMS would serve as a transition technology on the road to launching multimedia-messaging services, which combine text with pictures, sounds, animations and even video clips.
So why hasn’t EMS experienced the massive support afforded SMS, or the massive hype now surrounding MMS?
“If you want to sum it up in one word you can,” said John Delaney, senior analyst at research and analyst firm Ovum. “The word is: Nokia.”
When the Third-Generation Partnership Project standards body completed the specifications for MMS and EMS last year, Nokia Corp. was notably absent from the list of EMS supporters. The company bowed out of the EMS push because since 1997 it had been selling its own proprietary version of enhanced messaging services, called Smart Messaging. EMS and Nokia’s Smart Messaging are technologically different, and cannot interoperate, but they essentially offer the same end-user features.
Nokia, which controls around 40 percent of the worldwide handset market, said it didn’t want to jump ship in midstream to support the EMS standard. Instead, it said it would look to the future by supporting MMS messaging technology. Ironically, Nokia has lately been at the forefront of the industry’s open standards push, and was a main backer of the recently formed Open Mobile Alliance umbrella standards group.
Nokia’s decision not to support EMS technology caused a ripple effect throughout the industry, Delaney said. Carriers that wanted to offer EMS services to their customer base would have had to install a costly gateway to send EMS messages to and from noncompliant Nokia phones. The infrastructure issue was especially irking because EMS was designed to work over the SMS network-without requiring any upgrades on the part of the carriers.
“Once EMS became an infrastructure issue, it pretty much killed the market,” Delaney said. “It started to look stupid (to support EMS) because MMS was only a little way down the track.”
But that’s not to say EMS is dead. In fact, it is very much alive and kicking, although without the benefit of publicity or notoriety.
“I think it’s a safe bet to say that every GSM handset sold has EMS-with the exception of phones from Nokia,” said Jerry Hanley, director of business development for Magic4. The company sells messaging software-including EMS software-to handset makers, and its customers include Motorola Inc., Samsung and Panasonic. In fact, just last week LG Electronics announced it would incorporate Magic4’s EMS client into its CDMA handsets.
“Adding the EMS client doesn’t cost much because the development has already been done,” Ovum’s Delaney said. “It’s not that they have abandoned the standard, it’s just that they have reduced their attention substantially.”
Handset makers like Motorola, Sony Ericsson Communications, Siemens and others-vendors that at one time had loudly celebrated the benefits of EMS-now include enhanced messaging technology in most of their new phones, albeit with little or no fanfare. Further, content providers including Moviso and others offer EMS-based applications.
According to messaging research firm MobileStreams Ltd., 56 million EMS-capable mobile phones have been shipped to stores around the world. The firm forecasts that number will grow to 89 million by year’s end.
However, no one expects that 89 million people will send an EMS message to celebrate the New Year.
“The fact that there are legacy handsets out there that can’t support EMS, and Nokia Smart Messaging handsets out there that can’t support EMS, has really slowed its adoption,” said Magic4’s Hanley.
Interoperability has always been the key part of any messaging application-just ask the SMS evangelists in Europe as well as most of the U.S. carriers, which from all accounts have seen significant growth in messaging since signing messaging interconnect agreements. Since Nokia refused to join the EMS team, interoperability is all but out of the question for the EMS market.
Still, people use EMS. Besides allowing users to send messages to each other, EMS technology also allows users to download ring tones and graphics to their phones. This network-based application doesn’t require industrywide interoperability, only the support of a cooperative carrier.
“It really is up to the carriers to educate their users,” Hanley said.
Hanley hinted that one of the top four U.S. carriers is planning to launch a major campaign for EMS-based services, although he wouldn’t provide specifics. Interestingly, Nokia spokesman Keith Nowak said the company would consider adding EMS technology to its phones if a carrier partner so wished.
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” he said. “We will work with our carriers.”
However, Nowak added, “as a company, EMS is really not one of our focuses.” He said Nokia is putting its efforts behind multimedia messaging services.
EMS technology may yet have a place in the wireless industry, and will grow and develop with time. But most agree it will likely never receive the support or backing afforded other, more high-profile technologies.
“There’s nothing stopping EMS,” Delaney said. “But there’s nothing driving it either.”
