Matti Makkonen, widely known as the ‘Father of SMS’ has died at the age of 63. He has had a massive influence in the technology world and he will be missed.
It’s a sad time for the tech world – Matti Makkonen, widely known as the ‘Father of SMS’ has died at the age of 63.
Although he didn’t develop the technology on his own, he had the idea of sending text messages via mobile networks. Speaking on the 20th anniversary of the first text message sent, Makkonen said “the real launch of the service as I see it, was when Nokia introduced the first phone that enabled easy writing of messages (Nokia 2010 in 1994)”.
SMS has and will continue to have a massive influence on the technology world. Text-speak and auto-correct have spawned from SMS, whilst also providing a template for hugely influential social media platforms like Twitter.
Matti Makkonen believed that some form of text messaging will be around in some form forever and we have to agree, its effectiveness is undeniable!
He has been described by friends and colleagues as a man whose fascination with communications technology was irrepressible, and he will be missed across the entire technology industry.
