Varied Kinds of Messaging Services

Winston Churchill had said, "Broadly speaking, the short words are the best…" The world today abides by his words. So people condense their thoughts, views, and sentiments into pithy messages, sometimes accentuated by images and videos, and send these across to friends and acquaintances. There are varied kinds of messaging services that provide the means to communicate.



Short Message Service (SMS)



The SMS is the most widely used of all messaging services in the world. The technology enables mobile phone or landline subscribers to communicate using short textual messages. There are at present more than 3 billion people around the world, comprising approximately 75% of all mobile phone users, who use the SMS to keep in touch, convey news and information, schedule appointments, and even forge new and sever old relationships.

The SMS had its roots in the radio telegraphy technology and initially adhered to the standards set by the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). So, text messages at the inception of the SMS technology were limited to 160 characters. Since then, the service has developed to bring other mobile technologies like ANSI CDMA networks, satellite and landline networks, and Digital AMPS under its aegis.



Multimedia Message Service (MMS)



The MMS improves over the SMS and enables user of messaging services to embed multimedia components like images, audio, and video in their messages. It is a widely-used medium to deliver news and entertainment-related content. In 2008, there were 1.3 billion users of this service in the world and together they created and sent 50 billion multimedia messages.

MMS adheres to the technological standards laid down by the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA). However, it has evolved along with the development of supportive technologies such as Java, Bluetooth, Mobile Station Application Execution Environment (MexE), and location-based service systems.



Java Message Service (JMS)



The JMS is built on the standards set down for Enterprise Messaging or Messaging Oriented Middleware (MOM). This is the prevalent technology employed to transfer critical business-related information and event news within an enterprise. Like all other messaging services, the JMS also sees continuous innovations, most aligned with developments in the Java 2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) platform.

The development of 3G mobile services and its consequent adoption by the various messaging services have ushered several benefits for the users like faster connectivity and greater content adaptation.

Messaging technology enablers like MACROKIOSK or Macro Kiosk Berhad continually adapt themselves to the changing technological scenario and so 2 billion mobile users around the world just fly their fingers over the keypad and words, images, and videos take wings in an instant.