Picture this: MMS at the heart of business

There's no reason why MMS cannot act as a mobile extension of the corporate messaging and business applications environment, argues Bernadette Mulcahy.

Most mobile operators have been doing their utmost to promote multimedia messaging services (MMS), so all eyes are on the consumer response to this technology.

However, fun as it may be to send images to your friends via mobile, MMS's real potential may be as a business tool.

With some market focus and a touch of creativity, there is no reason why MMS cannot readily act as a mobile extension of the corporate messaging and business applications environment.

Analyst Juniper Research has predicted that business applications alone will account for $1.4bn of revenue in 2004.

MMS could have a wide variety of uses in business, offering industries added value that will translate into revenue for operators.

These uses will be not only an extra channel for revenue generation, but in some cases will change the face of some professions for which the speed and accuracy of visual records is critical.

Estate agents, for example, could use MMS to enter the age of the five-minute house sale by sending images to interested clients.

Digital and wireless technologies such as Short Message Service (SMS) have already helped to give rise to a new, super-efficient mobile workforce.

MMS will almost certainly build on this trend.

At enterprise level, corporations are likely to pre-configure their MMS workforce handsets according to business needs, allowing the rapid deployment of new tools and services.

There are, however, a few niggles to be ironed out. At present MMS messages cannot be sent from one network to another. There are also uncertainties about billing. Will users be charged a flat fee or on a per-message basis?

More important issues for the business-wide adoption of MMS are likely to relate to clip quality, storage and ownership. The picture quality of MMS must improve before it can be used profitably.

This could happen quickly, but might have a knock-on effect on storage capacity. Corporate users could generate large amounts of multimedia material to be catalogued.

Whatever the uncertainties about MMS, one thing is clear: its potential is much greater than current consumer applications. It will rapidly be at the heart of many businesses, changing working practices and positively affecting the bottom line.

Bernadette Mulcahy is strategic product manager for MMS at LogicaCMG.