InphoMatch launches MMS interoperability

Looking to help kick-start multimedia message service (MMS) usage in the same way it supported now-booming SMS, InphoMatch has launched its new platform for inter-carrier MMS interoperability.

“The key to carrier success with MMS is the same as it was with SMS—interop,” said JB Haller, senior vice president of marketing and business development at Chantilly, Va.-based InphoMatch. The company’s InphoXchange MMS is similar to its namesake SMS gateway solution, which carriers such as AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile and Dobson Communications have used to support inter-carrier SMS connectivity.

However, while InphoXchange MMS may have many of the same user notification capabilities and reporting tools, the new platform required “a lot of work and new investment for us,” Haller said. “SMS and MMS architecturally are really quite different.” For example, because the majority of MMS messages initially will be delivered to customers of non-MMS carriers and handsets as MMS-enabled handsets gradually make their way to market, InphoMatch offers an MMS alert that will direct these users to the Internet to view their messages.

InphoMatch laid out the strategic plan for the MMS platform last year, and started product development in the first quarter of this year. Now, it is eyeing an upcoming holiday season in which a larger number of MMS devices, such as the Nokia 6600, are expected to make a splash.

After that, it remains to be seen if MMS can following the model of the SMS market, which continues to grow at the robust rate of 10% to 15% per month. Still, many market watchers predict that MMS will account for 50% of total mobile messaging usage by 2007.

The increasing strength of the SMS revenue, balanced against the eventuality that MMS will begin to supplant SMS, is forcing carriers to closely watch the evolution of the mobile messaging market. “Carriers, to their benefit, are beginning to understanding that MMS has to be handled carefully,” Haller said.

To that end, InphoMatch is organizing an MMS interoperability trial that will involve a handful of carriers, and likely will be officially unveiled next month. The vendor actually began soft-launching InphoMatch MMS to its existing carrier customers in June. Haller said he also doubts that any major carrier is ready to launch an MMS promotional event on the scale of AT&T Wireless’ SMS polling event with the TV show “American Idol” earlier.

“I don’t think we’ll see any MMS events for the next 12 months,” Haller said. “With MMS device penetration still fairly small, carriers don’t want to do anything that will alienate the users that don’t have the MMS capability yet.”