[case study]

Phone Messaging Solutions Provider

Facial expressions, tone of voice, mood, and circumstance are all vital when words are not enough. PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER' latest version of its Java™ application, Expressive Messaging System (XMS 3), uses graphical objects to animate dialogue, and challenges text messaging as the mobile communication technology of choice.

XMS 3 from PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER of Helsinki, Finland, surrounds otherwise simple text messages with emotionally expressive picture elements, such as human and animal characters. Add text balloons to show tone of voice, and mood, time, and setting backgrounds and you can see how PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER is raising mobile messaging to the level of personal conversations. Teens, curious about new technology, find the visual medium addictively satisfying. The 20- to 45-year-old demographic uses XMS to maintain relationships with significant others.

A private, Helsinki-based company, PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER (inception 2000) enjoys multiple LARGE TELECOM support efforts. XMS is user friendly to owners of LARGE TELECOM WAP phones like the LARGE TELECOM 6200 and LARGE TELECOM 8300 series, as well as SMS and MMS (color and black and white) models. Mobile handset users found XMS 3 (and its predecessor, XMS 2) through LARGE TELECOM's Gradepoint, and Open Mobile (an ASP provider). Open Mobile hosts XMS for operators in Asia, who are offering it to an eager subscriber base.

PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER revenue agreements vary, including fixed, up-front licenses, monthly flat licenses, and monthly revenue sharing licenses.

Application Summary

Application

Java multimedia service for person-to-person messaging Expressive Messaging Service (XMS) is a multimedia messaging service that, through a broad selection of character images and text balloons (similar to a single pane in a comic strip), conveys emotions and expressions not possible with SMS alone.

Developer PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER

Tools used

LARGE TELECOM Mobile Internet Toolkit LARGE TELECOM MMS toolkit LARGE TELECOM EAIF emulator

Primary revenue source(s)

Fixed-fee licensing, revenue sharing

Development environment

Java, Forte IDE

Mobile technologies

MMS, SMS, LARGE TELECOM Smart Messaging, WAP

Device platform(s) Sending messages: WAP: All LARGE TELECOM WAP phones

SMS: all phones Receiving messages:

Picture messages: LARGE TELECOM 3200, 3300, 6200, 6300 and 8200 and 8300 series phones.

MMS: LARGE TELECOM 7650, 7210 B&W MMS: LARGE TELECOM 3510

Hosting companies

Open Mobile

Business Discussion

In 2000, PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER CEO took a look at mobile communications and realized that text messaging was the tool of choice for being socially connected. However, "the market was about SMS and all sorts of text-based services and applications," says CEO. Intimate personal exchanges involve entertainment, emotional contact, and expression of unique personalities. Limited to 160 text characters, SMS can't provide this range of discourse.

"Basically, nobody was talking about visual communication, so we faced the challenge of convincing the customers that visual communication is the future of mobile messaging, and that our product answers the needs of end users," says CEO. Expressive Messaging was the answer.

PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER started talking with carriers in the spring of 2001, soliciting input, and piecing together what it would take to bring them on board. It entered the market with its first visual venture, Character Messaging System, on July 9, 2001. It was followed by XMS 2, on October 4, 2001, and XMS 3 on March 3, 2002.

Though challenges arose, PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER product development progressed. Its four-member development team enabled multi-language character set support by using Unicode. Together with a strict policy for implementation, this made the technical aspects of multi-language support relatively painless. On the content side, management and localization issues for multi-language support proved more difficult. These obstacles were overcome using management tools and a well-defined process. Management tools included a dictionary tool for localization and content selection, a message text tool for localizing and editing XMS text, a tool for editing pre-fabricated characters, and a content upload package for content updates.

Customer demand to meet MMS and WAP terminal-specific features and requirements was met within the constraints of a strict policy for implementing functionality in which features in use across a broad array of devices were supported. Requirements for customer-specific environments such as different application servers, databases, and messaging and billing infrastructures also appeared. These requirements were satisfied using flexible modular software architectures with extensive configuration options.

Depending on their geographical location, end users pay about half a Euro per message sent. The revenue model is similar to SMS but for the premium pricing. Within the SMS business model, the per message price is highly dependant on the geographical location where the service is being sold, with Asian prices possibly running 10 to 100 times less per message than in some European countries. With MMS, the situation is still wide open because carriers have not decided on pricing models. However, half a Euro per message is a good estimate of what prices will gravitate to. CEO expects "the market for XMS 3 will take off in the autumn of 2002."

Application Detail

The sign-up process costs the end user nothing (unless the carrier chooses to add a fee). By providing modest personal information during registration, end users acquire access to the service with their phone number and a password. They then create their own unique characters to represent themselves when using the service, via a WAP-based character composer, a character editor on the Web, or by selecting a pre-fab character. Users select mood, time or setting backgrounds, and mood objects to complete the picture. The XMS character composer allows users to create highly individualized likenesses in under 60 seconds using over 1037 different character options. Each completed character is then capable of 45 automatic expressions.

Users surf to the XMS 3 home page via WAP, select from the menu to either send a "New Message," "Edit Character," "Edit Phonebook," or request "Help." They select an emotion from within the new message menu, a speech bubble (which determines tone of voice), and then can opt to preview the message. Users can also edit text before sending. They then select the recipient from their phonebook or enter the party's phone number. End users choose from multiple formats including Color MMS, black and white MMS, LARGE TELECOM picture message, or EMS. Upon sending, users are taken to a "message sent" confirmation page with options to send another message or return to the home page. SMS protocol messaging with XMS is limited more to mood selection but still permits a wide range of emotional communication.

Technical Discussion

A carrier or service provider places its own select link to the service on its WAP portal. They also host their own mobile platform, messaging gateway, XMS management tools, and billing system. PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER hosts the application server. What about session management? "When the service provider has a Web-login, we utilize that and we don't have to take care of the sessions. Sometimes we have our own session management and if the session is lost, the end user is asked to login again," says CEO.

User traffic for WAP MMS messages travels from a WAP phone to the XMS 3 server, then to the recipient phone using color MMS. Mobile subscribers can also send SMS XMS 3 messages from their handset in black and white MMS, or send from any computer with a browser and Internet connection through the server to a phone using LARGE TELECOM picture messages or EMS.

The XMS application is built on a J2EE™ framework, which handles WAP pages using the Model View Controller Architecture. Model View Controller Architecture simultaneously manipulates various aspects of both the business logic and user presentation levels of the several WAP page components. For example, both the page that an end user sees and the process that sends a message are within the Model View Controller's arena. Using this MVC standard means that developers can work separately on parts of the same page and have them all come together perfectly in the end, which makes seamless modification of interface and functionality possible.

Conclusion

PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER is still hard at work, finalizing features of upcoming versions and developing "the expressive power" of its product. It is happy with LARGE TELECOM, and with its near-term prospects, too. "LARGE TELECOM provided us with the whole development infrastructure featuring the MMSC connection and MMS phones, which were crucial in product development," says CEO. "[It] also provided us with specific information and support regarding these new technologies, which would have been difficult to obtain elsewhere."

New technologies like J2ME™, as well as new aspects of MMS and WAP, such as XHTML, will allow further advancement of PHONE MESSAGING SOLUTIONS PROVIDER' communications solutions. The goal of XMS is to become the standard for messaging, not just one among similar options for people who embrace expressive messaging as an intimate communication format.

Lessons Learned

Challenge Recommendation

· Multi-language support for character sets

· Multi-language support: management and localization

· MMS and WAP terminal specific features and requirements

· Customer-specific environments (different application servers, databases, messaging, and billing infrastructure)

· Use Unicode and strict policy of how to implement

· Use management tools and a well-defined process

· Use strict policy of how to implement functionality

· Use flexible, modular architecture with extensive configuration choices