Text Messaging Gets Personal

AirMessenger Personal lets consumers and corporate users personalize the most pervasive messaging service

Airwide Solutions today announced AirMessenger Personal, a family of network-level applications that lets subscribers add personalized enhancements to their SMS (short messaging service). AirMessenger Personal brings e-mail and parental control features to SMS while also providing enhanced security for subscribers. Both consumers and corporate subscribers can now archive, auto-reply, duplicate, create SMS groups, and apply personal anti-spam and security filters to inbound and outbound messages.

The AirMessenger Personal application family enables subscribers to personalize their messaging service through easily accessible SMS interfaces and Web portals. Mobile operators benefit from the opportunity to attract and retain new subscribers and increase revenues.

"SMS has been an unprecedented success, accounting for 68 percent of mobile messaging revenues worldwide, more than double that of IM (instant messaging), e-mail and MMS (multi-media messaging service) combined. But until now, SMS functionality has been limited compared to e-mail services," said Jay Seaton, CMO at Airwide. "AirMessenger Personal allows operators to leverage the popularity of SMS and offer differentiated, personal and valuable new services to attract and retain subscribers, stimulate usage and increase data service revenues and average revenue per user."

AirMessenger Personal Applications:

- Archive: Provides subscribers with their own network SMS message store, keeping copies of all messages sent and received. Subscribers no longer need to worry about restoring important messages to a new handset as all messages can be sent to it from the archive.
- AutoReply: Allows users to set an auto-reply when away from their mobile phone to alert senders that the subscriber is unable to receive or respond to text messages.
- Duplicate: Allows subscribers to automatically copy received SMS messages to multiple people or devices, providing enhanced coverage options. Additionally, it is increasingly common for people to have a personal mobile phone, a business mobile phone and a mobile data card for a laptop. This feature allows users to set up an automated duplicate to ensure that desired messages are delivered to whatever device the subscriber is using. For corporate users, this also ensures that
time-sensitive messages can be acted upon immediately.
- Groups: Similar to the distribution list functionality of e-mail, this feature simplifies how users can share messages with groups of recipients, regardless of which network they are on, and without the difficulty of manually copying messages or typing in multiple phone addresses.
- Inbox Guardian: Unsolicited text messages are an emerging threat. Operator-level content filters are by definition broad and impersonal. However, Inbox Guardian lets subscribers control which messages reach their mobile phone by blocking certain sources or only allowing messages from specific numbers to get through. In addition, parents can use it to provide a secure, protected messaging environment for their children.
- Outbox Guardian: Allows controls to be set on which numbers the mobile phone is allowed to send messages to. Parents can configure Outbox Guardian to ensure their children only communicate with known friends and family. This also helps prevent the inadvertent sending of messages to premium rate numbers. Outbox Guardian can also be used by corporations to control misuse of company-issued mobile phones.

 

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