Google’s commitment to Rich Communications Services (RCS) furthers with new acquisition

Today, Google acquired Jibe Mobile in an effort to keep up with the Rich Communications Services (RCS) standard for carrier messaging. The current state of carrier messaging around the world is outdated and unreliable, leaving many people without core features; therefore, Google acquiring Jibe Mobile, a leading provider of RCS, is meant to bring the updated standard to a global audience. This will bring group chatting, high resolution photos, and other features that are expected from messaging services to more people and devices.

Google commented on the future of messaging:

Many leaders in the wireless industry have already put great work into laying the foundation for RCS, and we’ve heard from many of them that there are ways Android can help. We’re excited to team up with mobile operators, device makers and the rest of the Android ecosystem to support RCS standards and help accelerate their deployment in a more consistent way. We’re already working closely with many of our partners on implementing RCS, and look forward to growing the RCS ecosystem together.

And here is some of what Jibe Mobile CEO Amir Sarhangi had to say:

“As a good friend once told me, if you want to do something big, start with something small — a single, singular challenge you can lead, and rally others to support.

For Jibe — a company we founded in 2006 — that lesson came true today with the announcement that we’ve been acquired by Google. The big opportunity we saw at the start: to change the way people communicate using their mobile phones.

The ‘small’ challenge we focused on: the future of messaging, the super simple mode for communication that’s favored by billions of people, all over the world.”

Mike Dodd, Android’s RCS Software Engineer, noted that it will “take time and collaboration throughout the wireless industry” to successfully deploy RCS on a grand scale.

Source: Google, Jibe Mobile

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