The present situation of the SMA field is presented and discussed in the paper. Further progress in the SMA field heavily depends on new applications of SMA. Significant progress regarding new applications could be achieved if potential users with new ideas could be attracted. Presently, the field of SMA is rather closed for non-specialists due to: very dispersed papers on SMA related studies, insufficient technical support by standards, and a lack of any generally accepted theoretical model of SMA behaviour.