Syniverse Technologies just announced a signed deal with VeriSign, Inc. to purchase VeriSign's messaging business for $175 Million in cash. The messaging business had aproximately $140 million in revenue for the last 12 months. This will put Syniverse in an almost immediate cash position on the company.
"This acquisition will benefit both global operators and subscribers," claims Tony Holcombe, President and CEO of Syniverse. "As mobile messaging volumes continue to experience double-digit growth, Syniverse will have the scale, reach and capabilites needed to provide mobile operators -- large or small -- with greater vendor choice and faster time to market for the services subscribers demand. Ultimately, the mobile sonsumer will benefit from more messaging services and applications."
The aquisition will compbine Syniverse's NEXT advanced messaging hub, with VeriSign's Inter-carrier gateway, PictureMail, Premium messaging Gateway, and Mobile enterprise solutions. VeriSign's services currently deliver about 60% of the inter-carrier messages in the United States. Syniverse will increase their ranks by 300 employees. Of the 300, 200 will be based in the United States, and 100 will be secured in India where Syniverse provides data clearing services, and recently number portibility services to several operators.
This transaction is still subject to and awaiting standard regulatory approvals.
Page Plus Cellular, a small prepaid carrier, has announced that they will add a $20 texting option to the line up for their customers. The domestic texting package will offer unlimited incomming and outgoing text messages when added in addition to any of their other service options. Page Plus Cellular currently offers a monthly plan that offers unlimited voice and text for only $40 per month.
This new text pack will be available for subscribers begining August 26th.
Los Angeles California was stirred this week when a Metrolink commuter train colided with a Union Pacific freight train. The crashed killed 25 including the engineer, and injured another 128 people. There are a couple of bystanders that claim to have received a text message about the same time as the crash. There is certainly a good reason to be concerned as there are already bans on texting while driving. Most train companies prohibit the engineers from using their phones while aboard the train already. Did the engineer violate these rules, or is this a case of coincidence? I feel that texting while operating anything besides my tv is just a bad idea. Will the new bands on texting while driving really curb the problem, or should we teach multi-tasking while driving as part of drivers education. After all police are trained to drive at high speed, and are allowed to do this when required for their job. This gives them crucial skills to cope with the change of pace. Would adding this type of requirement improve the likely hood of avoiding a crash? Sound off your opinions in the comments section!
The United States just broke numerous records for Text Messaging. Verisign 95.4 Billion inter-carrier text messages in the first half of 2008. This is a significant achievement signaling that text messaging is starting to gain traction in North America as a valid means of communication. During the most productive day from a texting stand point, a daily text record of 648 million messages were sent, and during the busiest hour 42 Million messages were sent, also setting a record for hourly text. Overall text messages were up 20% to the previous quarter. We can expect this number to grow exponentially as carriers continue to release new phones geared toward making text messages easier. Soon a full QWERTY keyboard will be as prevalent as cameras in cell phones. Developers are also starting to fuel the fire as their applications include text messaging as an integral part of their functions.
A Survey recently conducted by TNS Technology found that "once users adopt MIM, it becomes their primary non-voice method of interacting with others."
{RCR Wireless}
Eight banks and Visa have teamed up to create a trial of a new early warning system that will alert card holders via real time text message anytime there is a transaction on their Visa account. The test will be conducted with up to 2,000 card holders. Participating banks include PNC Bank, SunTrust Bank, U.S. Bank, Wachovia, and Wells Fargo in the United States, and Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank Financial Group, and Vancity in Canada. Customers will be allowed to set amounts that will trigger the text messages on certain types of transactions. Visa began experimenting with the mobile platform in 2007 hosting an internal trial using their employees as participants.
{Visa}
ChaCha is a great option for searching for information without the need to have a high end phone. The service is used by making a cell phone call or sending a text message into the service. ChaCha employs "guides" that are real people to interpret your questions and scour the Internet for you to find the answer. Most questions are answered within 3 minutes, and returned to your phone by way of text message. There is no charge for the service from ChaCha, although your carrier will charge you standard text messaging rates for sending and receiving text messages from this service unless you are a text messaging subscriber with your service of choice. I very much liked the ChaCha experience, but the downfall of the service is the need for location based information to accompany your question. You need to be specific with your questions. Instead of "Where is the cheapest gas?" You need to ask "Where is the Cheapest gas in Chicago?" If ChaCha could find a way to integrate this into the service they would have an even better service on their hands.
I would recommend that anyone try ChaCha. Here is how you can get started.
Simply send a Text message with your questions to 242242, or place a phone call to 1-800-2chacha
{CHACHA}
MetroPCS will be the first carrier in the US to display the new Samsung model number SCH-r540. This phone is dubbed "Messager", for its sleek horizontal slide design with a full QWERTY keyboard. This phone is akin to the likes of the LG Rumor for Sprint, or Scoop for Alltel. The feature list includes: 1.3mp Camera, SMS, MMS, Email, IM messaging, Bluetooth, Speakerphone, advanced voice recognition, and MP3 player with up to 2GB expandable memory with the external Micro SD card slot.
{SAMSUNG MOBILE NEWS}
