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| MSN, Vodafone launch PC-to-Mobile IM |
| Thursday, July 14, 2005 at 15:59 by Kathleen Hill |
MSN and Vodafone today announced plans to launch a first-of-its-kind seamless Instant Messaging (IM) service between PCs and mobile phones. Customers will be able to see the "presence" of their contacts and exchange instant messages between MSN Messenger on a PC and Vodafone Messenger on mobile phones and vice versa.
The service will be based on the familiar mobile commercial model of Calling Party Pays. As they do today, Vodafone customers will prepay or pay for the service through their monthly bill, while MSN Messenger customers will be able to pay through packages available in connection with MSN Messenger.
The service will bring together customers of MSN Messenger, the world's largest instant messaging service with more than 165 million customers worldwide, and Vodafone, which has 155 million customers around the world, as messaging continues to grow in popularity on PCs and mobile phones.
Blake Irving, vice president of the MSN Communication Services said,
"MSN and Vodafone are working to enhance messaging between mobile phones and PCs, ultimately delivering a richer experience to customers. By enabling our customers to see each other's presence on both PC and mobile devices, we are expanding our customers' ability to make smart communication choices and connect instantly via IM to the people they care about most."
Peter Bamford, chief marketing officer for Vodafone added,
"We have brought together two of the world's largest messaging communities with a first of its kind for both industries - a seamless PC-to-mobile instant messaging service. Vodafone customers will now be able to use IM and its additional service benefits to stay in touch with mobile and PC friends and family. IM is a growing part of the increasingly important mobile messaging market. By bringing our collective customers together, we'll deliver more options for staying in touch when messaging. Our agreement will grow IM and SMS, meaning additional revenue for Vodafone."
MSN and Vodafone plan to launch the messaging service in several European countries before the end of the year.
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| what is the general feeling if the two top powers added translatable mobile messaging in multiple languages languages? My feeling is that it would globalize the super power effort. |
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