Vodafone director claims SMS means business

NEWS The mobile phone text messaging system, Short Message Service (SMS), has taken the corporate market by storm, according to Vodafone director, Tony Riley. He said the youth market was initially responsible for the success of SMS, but over recent months uptake has largely come from corporate users. In a video interview for Silicon.com's Mobile and Wireless Channel (http://www.silicon.com/mobile ), Riley said: "In the corporate arena, SMS has characteristics that reaches very many needs. We have customers... who use it as a mission-critical application." Riley predicted SMS usage this month will top one million customers - a figure boosted by the advent of cross messaging. However, he refuted allegations that the technology will become redundant once Internet-enabled mobile phones hit the streets. "Each communication method has different characteristics. One of the characteristics of SMS is that it's a 'store and forward' service - if you are not there it waits until you are, and then delivers it when you arrive. So it will work in harmony with next-generation [phones] rather than be replaced by them."