Geodesic Information Systems, a provider of desktop solutions for instant messaging, plans to offer its mobile services for a number of BlackBerry (News - Alert) smartphones. The company has also joined BlackBerry ISV Alliance Program.



 
Geodesic’s (News - Alert) universal mobile instant messaging (IM) solution, Mundu IM, will support BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl and BlackBerry 8800 series smartphones, Geodesic said.
 
IM services from Geodesic are provided with advanced features such as multi-lingual chat, conferencing capabilities across IM services, push e-mail, and extensive presence management.
 
Mundu IM supports all leading Web browsers including Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Safari. In addition to interoperating with the leading consumer IM services, it integrates with Jabber for enterprise IM.
 
“By bringing IM beyond the desktop and enabling anytime instant messaging, business users will be able to enhance their mobile communications and improve productivity — a win-win for employers and BlackBerry smartphone users,” said Venkateswaran, Geodesic’s senior vice president of business development and general manager of U.S. operations, in a statement.
 
Gartner (News - Alert), a market research firm, says that the growing prevalence of IM clients on phones is shifting user patterns. In the coming years, IM will take over short messaging service (SMS) and become a mass-market application for mobile phones. According to Gartner, more than 1.8 billion Internet-enabled handsets are sold globally, with more than 750 active users. Worldwide mobile data (non-voice and non-SMS) revenue for the year 2007 was estimated as more than $60 billion.
 
Analysts, however, feel that IM may not take over SMS immediately since IM is not offered on all mobile phones. All mobile phones available today support SMS, but for mobile IM, a user only has the network or networks for which his/her phone is pre-programmed.
 
However, with the help of new IM applications like Mundu IM, smartphone users can add new messaging applications. Mundu IM combines all of the most popular IM services, including Yahoo!, AOL, MSN, ICQ and Google (News - Alert) Talk, with collaboration across mobile, Web and desktop platforms.
 
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Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Mae Kowalke


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