Movial has joined the GSMA Rich Communications Suite (RCS) work program as the PC client provider for the initiative, the company announced at the Mobile Asia Congress.
More than 30 companies are collaborating in the RCS project, including NTT DoCoMo, KDDI, SK Telecom, Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung.
Movial's contribution is its Communicator PC software, which enables mobile operators to seamlessly extend network-based enhanced service offerings to the PC environment, creating new revenue generation opportunities. The client includes IM, SMS, MMS, email, VoIP, video telephony, voice and video mail - all enabled with presence technology.
Movial is working on five RCS compliant operator trials using its PC client software and the IP infrastructure to showcase a full RCS-compliant offering across subscribers' mobile and PC environments.
Movial CEO and co-founder Jari Ala-Ruona told Telecomasia.net that with its fully integrated end-user experience, the Communicator PC is the first extension of a complete solution for rich multimedia communication.
"With over 15 commercial deployments of Movial's Communicator software, we have the expertise to make RCS services a reality," he said. "The Communicator PC enriches the experience by enabling subscribers to have the same mobile phone number as their PC. Subscribers can go back and forth between their mobile and PC and get all their same cool services -- regardless of the device."
He said this gives operators a way to offer a standardized and synchronized user experience across a subscriber's handset and computer, which gives users the opportunity to consume mobile minutes on their PC.
He said trials of the client show as many as 12% of mobile users use their PC as a mobile phone.