The worldwide market for instant messaging could grow to 175 million users by 2002, according to Mountain View, California- based market research firm Mobile Insights which, true to its brief, believes that integrated wireless communications will be the catalyst to further growth in the market. While Mirabilis’ ICQ technology (owned by America Online Inc) has been available for the Palm Pilot and Windows CE-based handhelds for some time, it has been slow to take hold due to the lack of wireless communications.
AOL has already hinted that it will work with 3Com Corp to integrate instant messaging technology onto the Palm platform, and Mobile Insights believes that instant messaging will eventually become a standard feature on all mobile information appliances. Five years from now the interface to most cell phones and wireless PDAs will include a buddylist, says industry analyst Jerry Michalski, president of San Francisco consulting firm Sociate Inc. The interface will help [users] avoid the necessity of making real-time two-way phone calls to handle simple communications, he says.
Earlier this week, Seattle Washington-based Tegic Communications Inc said that its T9 text inputting software for wireless phones will be integrated with instant messaging applications, enabling phone users to send instant text messages to people on buddy lists and see who’s online, either on their phone or PC. Short phrases can be selected from a keylist, with voice recognition and text to speech technology to come. Similar short text messaging capabilities are already available in the US, and are well established in Europe. Tegic claims to have won manufacturers representing more than 85% of the annual worldwide wireless phone production as licensees of its text input technology.
