Importance

As the Internet continues to expand at record rates, email and instant messaging have emerged as the first true "Killer App." America Online’s Buddy List network counts over 90 million users and hosts over 2.4 million simultaneous users. And usage is growing, with these instant messaging users online to the service for close to 3 hours per day. Forrester Research predicts that worldwide, more than one billion people will send nearly 7 billion email messages per day by 2002.

In the wireless arena, messaging usage is growing even faster. In Europe, Short Message Service (SMS) now carries over 5 billion messages per month -- and one carrier, Radiolinja, reports it experienced a greater than 1,000% increase in SMS usage last year. Furthermore, the Strategis Group forecasts advanced messaging subscribers to grow at a compound annual growth rate of close to 100% over the next four years. The explosion of mobiles will push this trend even higher. Already mobile phone subscribers have eclipsed the number of conventional fixed-line telephones in Japan and other countries and Gartner Group predicts that the quantity of annual shipments of portable Internet-enabled devices will surpass that of PCs in 2003. The future is clearly wireless.

• What applications will emerge as instant messaging spreads to wireless devices?

• How can existing carriers and network operators tap into this growth opportunity?

• How will device developments and form factors influence the growth and uses for Internet messaging applications?

• What are some of the developments on the horizon for advanced wireless messaging?

• Which Internet applications can benefit from the integration of instant messaging?