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At this year’s WWDC, Apple might disclose the workings of the RCS-iMessage bridge. While major announcements around AI are expected, many hope Apple sheds light on RCS support. In particular the rumor that it may enable the bridge only in markets where the operator, not Google, manages RCS traffic.
How to Deal with Rumors when Making Decisions
Market research, like intelligence gathering, deals with incomplete, unverified information. Colin Powell’s framework is helpful in using such information to make quality decisions:
- Tell me what you know.
- Tell me what you don’t know.
- Tell me what you think.
- Always distinguish which from which.
Step 1: Tell Me What You Know
Multiple reliable sources are telling me that Apple will support the iMessage-RCS bridge only in markets where the operators are managing their own RCS networks, i.e., via Google’s partner cloud, not Google’s guest cloud.
Step 2: Tell Me What You Don’t Know
We don’t know if it’s true; Apple is famously tight-lipped about everything. The original RCS support announcement, for example, was a surprise even to Google, making next week’s WWDC a must-watch.
Step 3: Tell Me What You Think
The Jibe RBM platform lives in the cloud, and Google offers two options to use it: guest cloud and partner cloud. The guest cloud is a low friction way for an operator to try RCS. Google handles all aspects of RCS, including brand vetting and developer onboarding. This gives the operator a great way to understand RCS without committing any resources. The partner cloud is where the operator, i.e., the partner, operates the cloud. According to this rumor, Apple will enable the bridge only in markets where the operators are using Google’s partner cloud.
Google has been winding down guest cloud access for a while. Thanks to major operator consolidation, the need has diminished. Moreover, policing the network, as Google has found out in markets like India, is a thankless job. Part of the negotiation with North American operators has been to have them take over infrastructure management, from network operations to brand vetting and onboarding. The North American market, especially, has mature, robust mechanisms for onboarding brands that can be reused for RCS.
In that light, Apple’s requirement isn’t so much a roadblock as it is a deadline by which the operator/Google negotiations must be complete. Apple wants this because requiring the carriers to manage RCS means they can treat RCS-generated and terminating traffic just like SMS.
Step 4: Always Distinguish Which from Which
See steps 1-3 above.
The requirement, if true, would make sense. It would accelerate plans already in place, and provide a deadline for the broader network to get all business terms and legal paperwork sorted out.
Finally
Scuttlebutt can enhance details of an already rich perspective. To an uninformed worldview it is just gossip.
We know why SMS is special in the US and continues to be so. It’s the first question any foreign investor asks me when investing in the US: ‘SMS in my home country is nothing but spam; how is it a big deal in the US?’
Verification in the US is more advanced than in any other market. The US is the only market with a defined ecosystem for verification. Operators taking over RCS network management means that businesses could have a smoother onboarding process for business messaging. Apple making this a condition for RCS support only creates a firm deadline by which it must be done.