I think in the end the carriers are going to realize that the good old days of SMS are over, that they are going to have to base their business plans on data rates from now on and not artificially created products called "messages." Manufacturers are going to get the message from consumers and start bundling more robust email clients and chat apps. Carriers in a tight market will start offering better data plans and even "free MMS" messages to compete. Small businesses have an opportunity to take advantage of the gap between this future reality and the current situation by creating easy to use, easy to set up email and chat services for mobile devices (integrating SMS push notifications will be key to these services)[Russell Beattie Notebook]
