With the ever-improving telecom infrastructure, can it ever happen that one fine day people stop text messaging once in for all? Vinay Goel, Head of products, Google India certainly thinks so. In a recent interview, Mr.Goel predicts that people are moving more and more towards e-mailing via their mobile phones that SMS may become obsolete pretty soon. “Typically, the data plans currently on offer charge 10 paise for 10 kb. So an email of say 100 bytes would cost 0.1 paise as compared with an SMS of around 100 characters which normally costs Rs 1″ he said.
So, will text messaging die? It simply cannot, in my opinion. And this is not the first time SMS has a death warrant issued against it, either. Way back in the early part of the decade, when mobile phones with MMS capability became common, it was often argued that a picture is worth a thousand words and so people are no longer going to use the plain text messages. SMS has come a long way since then.
Mr. Goel has failed to take into account the market dynamics that change as the economy changes. For one, just because text messages cost one rupee today (well, they are not. I pay far less than that!) does not mean they are destined to stay at that rate forever. Text messaging is one of the most profitable properties for telecom operators, even at the dirt cheap rates. That’s because text messages technically don’t cost money. It is just a means for operators to monetize the free bandwidth that shall otherwise go ununsed.
Another important factor to be considered is the utility. SMSes mean that the recipient is notified of the message immediately, unlike an email which remain ignored in the inbox for as long as you do not open it. And by the way, people go for blackberrys because it notifies the users of their new emails instantly, like an SMS does!
All said and done, as far as India is concerned, email is still too geeky for most of the mobile phone subscribers. Bandwidth may become cheaper, but user-friendliness is forever the forte of SMS that email cannot conquer anytime soon.
I agree. It will be difficult to beat SMS and the usage. As per me following are the reasons
1) Quick alert
2) Authentication process even if its blackberry, it will take longer period to open and up and editor and type in info.
3) Bandwidth issue
4) GPRS has not covered sufficient market
5) Now a days phone come with more then 160 Char SMS content writing option and SMS out going cost is now almost equal to nothing then taking pain on wasting time to open mail box and check mail.
@ Anand S
There are certain things I want to point out,
1.Agreed, Yes SMS is not going to die any soon.
2. For user it doesn’t matter if he is using SMS or any other kind of text message using GPRS/EDGE, all that he wants is ease of use.Mobile operators and VAS providers are seriously trying to address the issue.
2.Technology evolves and change is the only constant thing, even if SMS (by that I literally mean the technology which uses SMSC’s and stuff) dies off, text message is going to live forever, if it is in the shape of simple text message,IM or Email.
3.The proliferation of Push technology on mobile is going to change most of the regular(non-voice) mobile communication we see now a days,with push email notification will be more like SMS.
4.Google wave is one thing one has to watch out for