SMS means business

Forget kids texting away on street corners - the SMS has arrived as a serious business medium.

Research from the Mobile Data Association (MDA) shows 60 per cent of businesses polled use text messaging on a daily basis.

It is preferred to other forms of communication - perhaps unsurprisingly - when a brief message needs to be conveyed. In order of priority, business texting goes to colleagues, customers, bosses and then suppliers.

The future will see texts being used for customer communication, promotional campaigns and updating sales forces, according to the MDA. The association polled attendees at the SMS 2002 conference last month.

In October, a total of 1.5 billion text messages were sent in the UK.

For more information, including usage tips, see the MDA's http://www.text.it site.