Mobile World Congress 2017 saw well in excess of 100,000 visitors descending into Barcelona, intent on seeing the latest mobile phones and hardware, and the most advanced network solutions and messaging applications.
But what made us get excited? Here’s a round up of what made the Esendex team sit up and take notice.
The Internet of Things is growing and growing and growing…
With every passing year, the Internet of Things’ presence at MWC gains momentum, and while IoT has been around for a while now, some of its most exciting applications are just beginning to surface.
We saw some fantastic tracking applications which allow logistics businesses to track their new “smart pallets” and provide a more intelligent service.
“Our customers need to know that the seafood has been within a certain temperature range for the entire journey, and now they have sensors on the containers that look at the location, temperature, humidity, and they can even see if the doors have been opened at any point during the journey, which can speed up the process of getting it through customs.” (Source)
We also saw tracking applications in clothing, with IoT devices integrated into sailors’ jackets, allowing the sailors to be easily found if they fall overboard.
Planning the smart cities of the future
City life could be improved by IoT tackling everything from traffic flow improvement and pollution management, to energy efficiency and waste disposal.
In fact, it’s probably already being improved: for example, TomTom gathers anonymous traffic information from millions of satnav devices, and provides Vodafone users with real-time traffic reports. It suggests alternative routes so you can avoid congestion, and get to your destination more quickly (source).
This is all especially interesting for Esendex. We’re excited to see how our evolving communication channels can improve the links between users and the 27 billion IoT devices which are anticipated to be in use by 2025 (Machina Research, 2016).
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is coming
RCS as a concept has been around since 2007, but to date, hasn’t really got off the ground. However, that’s all set to change, and it’s something that we expect to be a major part of the future of business communications.
For those who are are unfamiliar with RCS, it’s an advanced messaging standard designed to improve on the functionality offered by messaging channels installed on all devices like SMS and MMS. The intention is that it will update and ultimately replace these services.
Among a raft of proposed features, RCS will allow users to incorporate better quality pictures, have group chats, share locations, and have video chats.
The game-changing move
In late 2015 Google announced that they would be adopting RCS, in a move designed to bring the standard to all Android devices. Concurrently, they acquired Jibe Mobile, a leading provider of RCS services, and are now inviting messaging solution / platform providers to work with them to develop the roadmap.
Being able to send more interactive and engaging messages is obviously something that the Esendex team are extremely interested in, as it would open up enriched messaging possibilities for our customers.
As such we’ll be keeping a very close eye on RCS over the coming months to see how it could complement our current communication channels, and work as part of a multichannel workflow.
Look out for more blog posts as we develop our proposition in these two hugely exciting areas of communication reform, or, if you’re an existing customer, have a chat with your account manager to find out more.
