SMS Text News sponsor, Clickatell, launched a mobile messaging portal for mobile operators today. The service enables operators to offer small and medium sized businesses, system integrators and application service providers carrier grade, IP-based SMS connectivity, and a sophisticated integration and message delivery environment.
As the Clickatell announcement puts it (and, well, it’s something I agree with too):
A fully managed and certified application showcase allows software vendors to commercially offer mobile applications, toolkits and plug-ins to enterprise portal customers, further driving messaging traffic.
For the last seven years Clickatell has been managing the interface between businesses and operators and currently has over 8,000 service providers and developers connected to its gateway.
The more the industry can do things like this, the better. I know there are pros and cons, but really, I’ve been on the coalface. I’ve been sat there in meetings or on teleconferences arsing around with technicians from mobile operators who never seem to understand the end-users of their technology.
Witness, for example, the Canadian wireless company who wondered “why the hell” (a direct quote!) anyone would want to send a text message to a screen in a nightclub. We pointed them to Impulse, we showed them the video of it working in England, we showed them case studies, stats, the whole shebang.
But still they couldn’t be arsed to unlock their network and give us a bit of a hand because they didn’t get our service.
No matter how many times I would yell, “But we’re talking about PUTTING MONEY IN YOUR POCKETS,” nothing seemed to work. Until we found an aggregator that sorted it for us.
So anyone that can stand in front of the mobile operators and just plug me straight in and let me get on with it, right on. More please!