Samsung ChatON Service to Launch This Week; Will Compete With BBM, Kik & Other Cross-Platform Services

Messaging is among the biggest applications in the mobile industry. Whether it involves SMS, emails or instant messages, smartphones and featurephones alike will need to support these features. With this, Samsung has announced plans to launch a cross-network and cross-platform messaging service called ChatON this week.

ChatON will bring text messages, group messaging, photo sharing and video sharing to Samsung mobile phones, and it’s not limited to Android smartphones only. Samsung says this new application and feature will support Smartphones, tablets and featurephones. Samsung will also release desktop and web-based applications in the future, for improved cross-platform messaging.

Knon as “Chateon” in Korea, the service will allow both Android and non-Android Samsung phones (like those running on Bada) support for the messaging feature. Feature-phones will support a basic version, while smartphones and tablets will have a more feature-rich version, which allows users to comment on other users’ profiles, much like social networking sites.

With this move, Samsung will be directly competing with the likes of Blackberry Messaging, although on a multi-platform basis, like popular apps Viber and Kik. The service is slated to launch this week at IFA in Berlin, and will be available by September in more than 120 countries and in 62 languages.