SMS messaging has been a source of considerable revenue for mobile phone companies for several years. It's cheap to implement and users love it, since messages can be sent in privacy even when you're standing in a crowded office, pub or train. However, there have been very few successful attempts at allowing you to send and receive text messages via your PC.

That's mainly due to the complexity of negotiating with the various networks and setting up a decent pricing plan. Text Gateway has done just that and the result is Taledo. This compact application installs itself as an add-on module to Microsoft Outlook, so it's immediately available to the vast majority of desktop users. After signing up to the service you're given your own reply number, which allows incoming SMS messages to be received back to your desktop.

Alternatively you can arrange for messages to be forwarded to your own mobile phone, which might be preferable for people who spend a lot of their time out of the office. Once this configuration has been made, you are ready to send and receive SMS messages from within Outlook. Opening the Taledo application gives you a window into which you can type your message. You can choose the recipient from your address book and there's the option of sending messages to groups of recipients; contact details can be imported into the application from other databases.

Conveniently, there's a 'translate' button that will convert "See you later" into "c u l8r", for example. Apart from appealing to teenagers of all ages, this also has the advantage that it cuts down the size of the text message, hopefully below the 160 character limit. If not, there's the option of sending longer messages in multiple parts.

Once you're connected to the Internet and you press the 'send' button, the message is transferred to the Taledo server via an encrypted link and then sent out to the recipient mobile. The whole operation usually takes less than 30 seconds and there's a status report for each message to let you know whether or not it was received. More detailed information about billing and usage is available from the company's Web site, again via a secure link and using your chosen account number and password.

You get 100 free messages with the product, after which you can buy extra credits over the secure server. The pricing will vary depending on which plan you choose, but it's likely to typically work out at a little over 8p per message. For resellers of the package, there's the option of customising the administration screen and deciding which of a variety of tariffs to apply.

Although it's early days yet, Taledo appears to be a well-written and well-designed application that has the potential to widen the appeal of SMS to business users. The group send option could be particularly useful, although care will have to be taken to avoid any hint of spam-type usage. Used wisely, Taledo offers a valuable new method of keeping in touch with customers.