IM to mainstream in 2008

IM seems pretty mainstream to me now, both in the cellular and PC spheres. It can only increase though with the networks getting involved, although I disagree with this:

the networks have the budget to pay for ongoing development and marketing costs that the other local players simply don’t have.
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since Naspers took a stake in Mxit and they have pretty deep pockets.
 
firstly the networks were losing a lot of money to Mxit and other IM clients
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If I look at their results it doesn't seem as dismal a picture as this reporter claims. And although you don't pay a lot for data if you use Mxit every character you send makes the network a bit of cash. A million people all paying a Rand for a few hours of using minuscule bandwidth doesn't seem too bad to me.

I don't see how the networks entry into the market is going to make them more money. If they try to charge more than the existing IM client nobody will use their service and so they have to keep in line.
 
pkid said:
If I look at their results it doesn't seem as dismal a picture as this reporter claims. And although you don't pay a lot for data if you use Mxit every character you send makes the network a bit of cash. A million people all paying a Rand for a few hours of using minuscule bandwidth doesn't seem too bad to me.

I don't see how the networks entry into the market is going to make them more money. If they try to charge more than the existing IM client nobody will use their service and so they have to keep in line.
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The problem is that even though they use miniscule bandwidth they still take up a timeslot so they can cause network congestion. The networks should've launched this much earlier, then they would've benefited from the network effect as Mxit now is. They'll probably end up having a large user base amongst the less technical people though who'll just use the network program because it comes bundled with the phone and is supported by the network etc. I'm sure eventually Vodacom might start integrating it into their Vodafone firmware etc. and MTN might do the same.
 
the only way they can make this a good option for normal people, is if they make there programs capable of talking with the mxit server and the other networks server. And you must remember that cell c users will be left in the dust... so they fools to try cut out mxit... Mxit is also used all over the world by ex-south africans, and family members of south africans, so yet again they fools to cut mxit out the picture...

Isn't it funny how the bigger companies try to cut out the smaller guys, just because they making a success...

I really don't think this is fair for any one... because, do you see telkom shooting making a big fuss over skye, even though skye is basically costing them money?

ah, the future will how interesting prospects for every one :D

There's one more thing mtn and vodacom are forgetting. and thats the fact that mxit is a much more mature IM and it's starting it's own cult like following... I mean, in South Africa, mxit is THE way for teens to communicate. It's doing what the Ipod did for mp3 players. If you don't have an Ipod, you aint cool... If Mxit Lifestyles (i think thats what the company is called :D) starts advertising this, it could just screw mtn and vodacom in the ars
 
Well two fold – firstly the networks were losing a lot of money to Mxit
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Bollocks, Mxit is an just a Net app that runs over cellular, so they were MAKING money from it, because many more people used cellphones more and spent more on cellphone Internet bandwidth. They didn't "lose" anything other than imaginary exorbitant profits they theoretically might've made if users had to SMS instead, but Mxit in itself inherently proves that the markup on SMSs must be somewhere in the "friggin insane" range. If they were too slow or greedy to recognise or take advantage of new market opportunites, they deserve any so-called "loss" they made. The IM market relies on network effects / critical mass, so it'll be hard to convert the existing Mxit user base. However there is still a huge untapped market (the majority of people don't use Mxit), and I imagine that the plan would be to thus expand the market and bring more people to it by the networks pre-installing all new phones with their own chat apps if they want to compete with Mxit.

Something that was not clear to me when I looked at Mxit a year or two back was what their business model was. I couldn't see one. Perhaps they were primarily positioning for a buyout or "buy-in" by one or more of the major cellular networks - certainly a company like Vodacom can afford to simply buy the entire thing, lock stock & barrel. This could of course either mean that it can become bigger than ever, or disappear quietly, or morph into something else more expensive.
 
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To be frank, I don't think they will stop people from using mxit very easily...at least not me. Why change to a far less known service when you can stay with a popular service that has basically everything you could need in order to chat?
 
One thing that I think must come from the evolution of the cellular & telephony market is the move to an ip only platform perhaps? You keep seeing cellular standards advance further but maintain a propriety hardware based voice system in place for the only reason to make money of people and with bandwidth and computing speed of end devices becoming a non-issue the use of their own more expensive based system is becoming silly to justify. I wonder if majority will force their hand in the end.
 
IM has always been around and thanks to Mxit more average folk in the street do know what it is. The thing is that IM should remain free and will always be thanks to the multitude of options out there.

The thing is why are the networks trying to get in on the game. Why are they trying to also compete with the likes of Mxit. Is it in the hope of making some extra profit. If they attempt to monetize the IM services too much they will infact destroy the whole concept of what IM is all about.

Thankfully the public have a say and they have made their decision. It will take a lot to take Mxits share away from them. I for one have had my reservations about Mxits technical issues, but I will still support them all the way. This clearly seems like a form of profiteering by the networks.

The networks are doing a lot of good for the telecoms industry IMHO even though we like to critisize them. If I was on the board of directors of one of the networks I would rather divert investment away from trying to compete with IM and rather push the money into infrastructure. And improving packet switched services and making things more affordable.

This might end up a white elephant project.
 
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