Many people have been sceptical of RCS.. And indeed there has been some justification for that scepticism..

My personal view is: Firstly, RCS applications like Enhanced Address Book, Rich Call, Rich Messaging etc are useful applications in any case and Secondly – even in an ‘open’ world – there is a place for bearer aware applications/QOS based applications.

However .. As I read the news of RCS release 2 being announced today.. There are two significant items which catch my attention..

Firstly, the RCS managing the involvement of PCs in addition to mobile devices. THIS has a much better chance of working in my view..

Having broadband access to core RCS services such as in-call multimedia sharing, conversational messaging and presence-enhanced contact management means that users will be able to access services and applications from both mobile and fixed terminals, resulting in a seamless experience across both mobile phones and PCs. Utilising mobile and fixed terminals when accessing RCS services will result in the use of multiple clients, even though the mobile phone will remain as the customer’s primary device, and will provide greater flexibility as well as enhance the user experience.

Secondly, the experience of LG in South Korea.. I will seek to find out more about LG’s RCS implementation – but it is certainly nice to see it working in a market like South Korea

“We believe that RCS will become the first real-world communicationpackage that will instantly penetrate the global market. RCS goes beyond traditional 3G multimedia services and successfully combines a number of exciting features together that consumers would like to use on a daily basis,” says Dr. In-Kyung Kim, Vice President and Head of 4G Development Lab at LG Electronics. “Customer feedback from Mobile World Congress 2009 has suggested that LG RCS was an outstanding implementation which correctly depicts what user experience for RCS should be like. LG is fully ready to dive into RCS commercialisation. We are looking forward to service providers’ deployment plans.”