This story appears in the
August 2004 issue of
Entrepreneur.
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You just took a camera-phone photo of a finished project and
sent it off to your client. That's a great convenience, but
your client may not be able to view it. As with many aspects of
mobile phone use in the United States, there are interoperability
issues when it comes to swapping photos. You're on solid ground
when your recipient has the same service provider, but transfers
between services get iffy.
That's a relatively temporary inconvenience. With tech
research and consulting firm Zelos Group predicting the mobile
photo market will grow by a factor of 40-to more than $440
million-by 2008, industry figures have great incentive to make
their systems compatible. Look for improvements to begin this fall,
expanding to full interoperability within a few years.
Carriers will likely rely on third-party developers to help them
get there. For example, LightSurf built the engine that lets Canadian Bell
Mobility and Sprint users exchange photo messages across the
border. In the meantime, you can fall back on attaching photos to
e-mail or swapping images via Web sites designed for that purpose.
When in doubt about who can receive your pics, check with your
service provider.