Mobile IM Clients - a pow-wow between Mundu IM and Agile Messenger

I’m a big fan of mobile messaging clients. I have been using a whole bunch of them on my treo 700w for the past year. Out of the whole lot of IM clients on the Windows Mobile platform, 2 stand out in a class of their own.

Here’s how they fared for me:

Agile Messenger has by far the best feature set that integrates effectively with Windows Mobile devices. Try taking a picture and sending it anyone in your buddy list (from within the AM client) - its a breeze; I couldn’t successfully execute the same task on the Mundu IM, I also tried using the browse functionality but Mundu served up an Internal Error and crashed out.

Voice support for yahoo and google talk is excellent on the AM although it is only half-duplex. A similar feature is just not available on the Mundu IM. (see pictures below, but you really have to use the application to gauge how usable this is)

The AM development team has focused heavily on a “mobile user experience” and it is evident in the way the application behaves from the get go - for eg. when you enter a message on a IM chat window it automatically gets shortened and saves real estate on the screen. Attention to detail while designing for mobile platforms is the key for a good mobile user experience and AM provides a great feel for mobile messaging. Here are some more aspects of AM that certainly stand out while using the IM client:

a. Speed - the AM client just seemed more efficient on my device.
b. Clean UI
c. Voice Support Rulz!

AM is a C++ client while Mundu is a .NET CF client - this should not really make a difference to the User but it DOES! especially when the CF app runs slow and the inefficiencies of the platform are highlighted. I am guessing a full-fledged chat client is rather resource hungry and this accentuated on the device. Does anyone have any factual data about .NET CF performance - I would love to read it. Meanwhile, I expected a whole lot from the Mundu client on WM and it failed to deliver. I know people at Mundu, and I know for a fact that they are thinking about the same things as AM when it comes to User Experience but this version certainly needs a make over and if possible a complete rewrite. To be fair this is their first WM IM client and I am sure improvements can be made and most certainly they will.

Here are some more screenshot comparisions between the 2 clients…