Bill Gates motto was, " We create something,, and then make people realize that they dont have it,, and we make them realize that they need it." Safcom is simply looking ahead - and "ahead" as the Telkom Market goes, is data services. By providing the IM service, it is placing a bet on a service that may or may not succeed - but then again, should people take it up, they will be there to provide the service. With regulations and competition on contemporary services such a voice and typical data - pricing models may change in years to come, where Safcom may be forced to lower its prices, and thus not meet its high gross. Investing in diverse gambles on data, may just provide a winning bet in one of hundreds of services in the future - at the same time, some of those investments may die. May be, when someone develops an application to equal "MXit" in Kenya, and convinces Safcom to pay attention, and Safaricom tests and sees it viable - it may just migrate its MXit user base to the local app - but until then...