Our ultimate aim is to ensure the fast introduction of MMS technology with high user adoption from the beginning. SMS was a groundbreaking success and we expect MMS to follow in its footsteps as it will be just as easy-to-use and convenient, but even more fun. said Peter Zapf, President of Mobile Phones within the Information and Communication Mobile Group at Siemens.

MMS goes beyond its predecessor Short Message Services (SMS), which only displays text limited to 160-characters. MMS is a global standard used to deliver messages containing text, audio, graphics, photographic images, and even video clips between mobile devices. The first MMS enabled products are expected to be commercially available this year.

The fact that Siemens now joins Sony Ericsson and Nokia in the initiative emphasises the strong industry commitment for MMS to become a mass market service. Ensuring that MMS equipment from different manufacturers work seamlessly together will help speed up the introduction of MMS services with high quality, says Christer Bj�rk, business area manager at AU?System.

MMS-enabled phones will feature a built-in media editor that allows users to easily create and edit the content of their multimedia messages. Users can generate personal postcards via a digital camera. They can add text and attach audio clips to the photograph before sending it directly to another MMS-capable phone or to a recipients email address. MMS uses the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) powered by the transmission technology of GSM, GPRS and UMTS. MMS is approved as a standard by the WAP Forum and the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).