Samsung is on an acquisition roll — the company recently announced the $8 billion acquisition of Harman International, but Harman isn’t the only business it bought out. It also purchased a Rich Communications Services business from NewNet Communication Technologies. The business, called NewNet Canada, will operate independently as a unit of Samsung, and could make your texts a whole lot more interesting.
Rich Communications Services, also known as RCS, is largely thought of as the next generation of text messaging standards. The standard helps make text messages act very similar to messages sent through a service such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, but it enables those features through the basic SMS, or short message service, already on your phone.
An example of the new features RCS can bring to SMS is that you’ll be able to see when someone is typing a message, and you’ll get notifications when the other person has seen your message. Not only that, but it will be a lot easier for people to be added and removed from group messages. Last but not least, it will be a lot easier to share files and photos.
It’s not known what the terms of the deal are, but Samsung did issue a press release announcing the acquisition and some insight as to why it’s important for the company.
“This acquisition is a critical milestone not just for Samsung but also for the communications industry,” said the company in its statement. “As an end-to-end, GSMA-compliant RCS solution, it will accelerate the deployment of RCS-enabled networks, providing consumers with a ubiquitous standards-based messaging and communications platform.”
Samsung, as mentioned, has also snapped up Harman International, giving the company a ton of connected car technology, as well as a series of consumer audio products.
