The company that sent the firstSMS mobile text messageis celebrating
the technology's 15th birthday.
Next generation mobile messaging firm Airwide Solutions sent the
first
SMS message over the Vodafone network in December 1992.
The message sent said simply "Merry Christmas", and the man who
sent it is still working as an engineer for Airwide today.
Neil Papworth, then working for the company as a test engineer,
today a principle software engineer, said, "I was a young engineer
working on new communications technologies. We thought SMS was a
clever way for a company's staff to send simple messages to one
another.
"I would never have predicted that it would spread into the
consumer world and become what it is today. At the time it did not
seem like a big deal."
The firm this week hosted an industry dinner to mark the
anniversary. John Delaney, an Ovum analyst who attended, said, "The
industry is still struggling to find new services that are anywhere
near as popular and profitable as the 15-year-old SMS.
"SMS is simple, ubiquitous, easy to use and cost-effective.
These are the guiding principles that all new services must follow,
if they are to succeed on the same scale as SMS."