Gemalto Brings Facebook® to All Mobile Phones
Facebook for SIM - now working on any handset and for any subscription
model
Mobile World Congress 2011
BARCELONA, Spain--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mobile World Congress -- Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the
world leader in digital security, announced Facebook for SIM,
which enables anyone to enjoy the service on all handsets, even if
without a data connection or data subscription. With this announcement,
Gemalto brings Facebook to millions of mobile phone users regardless of
their handset type.
?Over 200 million people already
use Facebook on handsets and those are twice as active as non-mobile
users1. By providing anytime, anywhere
availability to the social network, Gemalto delivers on the growing
demand for mobile connectivity all over the world.?
?Increasingly people want to be able to stay connected and
communicate with their friends on Facebook anytime, anywhere,? said
Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook. ?Gemalto has
developed a creative solution in Facebook for SIM that enables people
without mobile data plans to stay connected to their friends on Facebook
in an affordable way.?
Gemalto?s software development team has embedded the software
application into the SIM. This ensures the Facebook application is
compatible with 100% of SIM-compliant mobile phones.
The innovative solution provides mobile subscribers with simple and
convenient access to core Facebook features such as friend requests,
status updates, wall posts or messages. It also offers unique functions:
people can sign up for this service and log in directly from the SIM
application. Interactive Facebook messages pop-up on the phone?s screen
so people can always share up-to-the-minute posts and events. One can
also automatically search their SIM phonebook for other friends and send
them requests.
Facebook for SIM is extremely easy to use and is available to
everyone. No data contract or application download is needed, because
the software is embedded in the SIM and it uses SMS technology. As a
result, it works for prepaid as well as for pay-monthly customers.
Following an initial limited free trial period, Facebook for SIM
then operates on a subscription model via an unlimited pass for a given
period of time.
?Facebook for SIM enables operators to leverage two of their
main assets: the SMS to communicate with the web application and the SIM
for application distribution to the masses,? added Philippe Vallée,
Executive Vice President, Gemalto. ?Over 200 million people already
use Facebook on handsets and those are twice as active as non-mobile
users1. By providing anytime, anywhere
availability to the social network, Gemalto delivers on the growing
demand for mobile connectivity all over the world.?
Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.
1 Ibid.
About Gemalto
Gemalto (Euronext NL 0000400653 GTO) is the world leader in digital
security with 2009 annual revenues of ?1.65 billion, and over 10,000
employees operating out of 75 offices, with research and service centers
in 41 countries.
Gemalto is at the heart of our evolving digital society. The freedom to
communicate, travel, shop, bank, entertain, and work?anytime,
anywhere?has become an integral part of what people want and expect, in
ways that are convenient, enjoyable and secure.
Gemalto delivers on the growing demands of billions of people worldwide
for mobile connectivity, identity and data protection, credit card
safety, health and transportation services, e-government and national
security. We do this by supplying to governments, wireless operators,
banks and enterprises a wide range of secure personal devices, such as
subscriber identification modules (SIM), Universal Integrated Circuit
Card (UICC) in mobile phones, smart banking cards, smart card access
badges, electronic passports, and USB tokens for online identity
protection. Moreover Gemalto delivers on emerging applications related
to the ?Internet of things? by supplying wireless modules and machine
identification modules (MIM) for machine-to-machine communication. To
complete these solutions we also provide software, systems and services
to help our customers achieve their goals.
As the use of Gemalto?s software and secure devices increases with the
number of people interacting in the digital and wireless world, the
company is poised to thrive over the coming years.
For more information please visit www.gemalto.com.
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