Yesterday a colleague made me aware of this Ericsson's IPX SMS based payment system that looks like a competitor to the NFC technology and doesn't involve any additional chip/hardware. Here is a video:
Ericsson Internet Payment Exchange (IPX) is a leading mobile aggregator, providing delivery and billing services, via SMS, MMS, web and online mobile billing, to more than 2 billion mobile subscribers across 26 countries. Ericsson IPX also brokers location information in selected countries and Ericsson IPX Messaging provides reach to 96% of all mobile subscribers worldwide with SMS. Ericsson IPX customers are companies who offer digital content, mobile voting & directory information and enterprises offering mobile marketing, communities and banking.
Now, we all love SMS and we have to admit that its the simplest of technology and even the most primitive phone nowadays support it but there could be scenarios when this can be a bit of a problem:
1. SMS can sometimes be delayed if a particular cell is overloaded, etc. So how long do we have to stand in front of the machine?
2. If say for 2-3 mins we do not receive an indication that the machine has a cash, do we send another SMS to cancel the transaction?
3. If we have a problem, do we have a support number to call to? How much will that cost?
4. If there is a queue of people and someone else wants to purchase something as well, does the next person has to wait till the person before has received the item?
5. If two people have sent an SMS, how do they know whose cash is in the machine now? Do we start putting a Pin as well ?
I agree, this technology could be really useful if you have run out of cash (even if you have NFC chip) and you need to purchase something small.
The other obvious advantage is that you can target advertisement at regular users who are at a particular place at a particular time to make them buy something. Also you can get statistics like what time people tend to purchase, what do they purchase, where, etc.
Anyway, hard for me to see this take off big time.