Originally Posted by
Birgitte Sciarretta Skype.
Thanks for the suggestion although I already do use Skype. While Skype is handy to send the odd text message, it does not use your phone directly. It also costs to send SMS and you cannot receive them directly to the PC, only back to your phone. This makes it too awkward and costly for even a short conversation. If they're a smartphone user it's better just to have them as a direct contact.
Just to preempt anyone who says why not use a chat program, remember there are still users who don't use a smartphone. Having said that I suspect this is probably the reason that this type of capability is not being developed anymore as they assume everyone has, or will soon, have a smartphone with an appropriate chat program.