Best-in-Class Enterprises Rely on Mobile Messaging for Success


SMS stands tall as world's premier messaging service

Redwood Shores, CA, 6 February 2007 -- Aberdeen Group's newly released "Benchmarking Enterprise Mobile Messaging Report: December 2006", sponsored by the world's premier mobile messaging operator, Clickatell, reveals mobile messaging is becoming a key consideration for enterprises. It further confirms SMS as the globe's foremost mobile messaging service.

Analyzing the use of push e-mail, enterprise SMS, enterprise Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), mobile Instant Messaging and mobile Voice over IP (VoIP) in over 150 organizations worldwide, this study found 85% of all organizations surveyed have at least one mobile messaging solution in place and 68% have two or more.

"The need to react more quickly to environmental changes is driving organizations to adopt mobile messaging solutions. Moving beyond push e-mail, companies are now also assessing other mobile messaging solutions such as SMS for their ability to improve workflow. The ideal is to have all these communication options available on one device", says Pieter de Villiers, chief executive of Clickatell, whose customers include John I Haas, Heart of Birmingham Primary Trust Care, Vodacom, First National Bank, and Oracle.

Multimodal mobile messaging, combining voice, e-mail, SMS and fax delivery channels, ensures companies of confirmed delivery of mission critical information. The flexibility of multimodal messaging further allows enterprises to stay in touch with staff, partners and customers anywhere, anytime by switching between the recipient's preferred communication mediums at any time.

SMS's quick and cost-effective data delivery, together with its proliferation as one of the most commonly used and understood forms of non-voice mobile communications, has seen it emerge as the world's primary messaging service in recent years.

According to Aberdeen's research, 48% of all organisations and 59% of best-in-class companies deploying mobile messaging applications are opting for SMS.

The top factors driving SMS's uptake is the ability to satisfying customer needs (81%), to react quicker to change (67%), and to achieve operational cost efficiencies (57%). Best-in-class organisations use SMS predominantly in customer service and sales departments, while newer users of the technology still mostly deploy messaging in their IT departments or to communicate with colleagues.

While 69% of all organisations prefer to have their SMS solution either completely outsourced or hosted by a third party, 67% of best-in-class enterprises already have an infrastructure in place that supports a platform solution unifying their mobile messaging applications.

"The technical experience and expertise of an established mobile data solutions partner and redundant connectivity makes outsourcing messaging worthwhile instead of re-inventing the wheel. Multi-channel solutions such as those provided by Clickatell get companies up and running quicker with less initial expense, providing a clear path towards a unified messaging environment across the enterprise," says De Villiers.

To download the report go to:

http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410590&cid=3703

About Clickatell

Clickatell is the premier global mobile messaging operator with over 8,000 customers across 600 networks spanning almost 200 countries. Clickatell's messaging gateways connect directly and securely with the infrastructure of carriers worldwide. This enables Clickatell to guarantee delivery and receipt of massive quantities of inbound and outbound messages in real-time to any device, i.e. cell phone, smart phone, landline, fax, pager, PC or any IP-connected device. Clickatell's enterprise-grade Multimode Messaging Manager is built on open architecture and standards allowing today's devices to connect transparently across multiple channels. Headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, the company has offices in the United Kingdom and South Africa. For more information please visit https://www.clickatell.com/central/campaigns/redir.php?cid=5747.

About the Aberdeen Communications channel

Centered on enterprise communications technologies - IP telephony, networks, applications, hosted services, service provider management, wireless and mobility - the Communications channel leverages the skills of our world-class communications-focused analyst team within the context of the Aberdeen model.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to AberdeenTM for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company.

Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen www.aberdeen.com or call
(617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to:
http://www.harte-hanks.com

For further information, please contact:

Vanessa Clark,

Clickatell Ltd,

Vanessa.clark@clickatell.com,

UK: +44 20 8973 244,

SA: +27 21 910 7700

Elzaan Rohde,

Sentient Communications: Account Manager,

elzaan.rohde@sentientcommunications.co.za,

US: +1 650 641 0011,

T: +27 21 422 4275

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