ForgetMeNot Africa
Encyclopedia
ForgetMeNot Africa was created in 2009, when ForgetMeNot Software
joined forces with investment company
Lonzim Plc to create ForgetMeNot Africa, a subsidiary
that's solely focused on providing unified messaging
and financial services
in Africa
, and began deploying its technology
on the continent that same year, in Lesotho
. Lonzim Plc owns 51% of ForgetMeNot Africa and ForgetMeNot Software
own the remainder of the company.
ForgetMeNot Africa works with telecommunication companies to offer unified messaging services, such as email
and online chat
via standard mobile phone
s. It sees the market opportunity as the 3.5 billion mobile subscribers in the developing world who could use any SMS
capable mobile phone to send email and chat online without needing to upgrade or download any new applications onto their device.
and social networks to offer their users two way interaction
on social media
sites, as well as by email, instant messaging
(IM) via SMS from and to any mobile phone regardless of its make or model.
ForgetMeNot Africa's Message Optimiser platform was awarded 'Best Innovation in a Mobile First Market' at the Meffys in July 2011, and won the 'Innovation in Messaging' award at the 160 Characters Mobile Messaging awards in June 2011.
African Mobile Network Operator
s using ForgetMeNot Africa’s eTXTing platform enable their subscribers to send and receive eTXT messages as an SMS, an email or online chat.
eTXT bridges the gap between PCs
and mobile orientated messaging without ever needing to have a PC or Internet access
. This is particularly suitable for developing nations where PC and Internet access percentages average in the low single digits.
In February 2011 ForgetMeNot Africa added the Facebook
functionality to its Message Optimiser platform. This enabled any mobile phone subscriber to an operator deploying the Message Optimiser technology to access Facebook Chat, update their profiles, ‘like’ their friends’ statuses and comment on threads via SMS.
Lesotho’s
highly literate population struggles to access vital information, such as healthcare, travel and educational resources as according to the International Telecommunication Union
only 3.4 per cent of the population use the Internet
. Expanding the country’s access to email via entry level, low end mobile phones improves access to information, communications with friends and family and trade to email by bringing two-way email to their entire mobile customer base
.
In May 2010 ForgetMeNot Africa helped Safaricom
, Kenya
’s largest telecommunications operator, give almost 9 in 10 of the population’s mobile phone subscribers access to email and online chat on their standard mobile phones when it rolled out its Kipokezi
service.
Prior to the launch of Kipokezi fewer than one in ten Kenyans had accessed the Internet but the new service enabled more than one third of Kenya’s population to exchange email and online chat messages. Kenya’s number of mobile phone subscriptions has grown from just over 125,000 in 2000 to more than 17 million ten years later.
In September 2010 ForgetMeNot Africa, in partnership with Rapid Communications, deployed its technology with Kenya's yu, the mobile brand of Kenya's
third largest telecoms network Essar Telecom Kenya
. Using the Message Optimiser technology yu launched the Peperusha service, enabling it to bring mobile email and online chat on first-generation mobile phone handsets to its entire 1.6 million subscriber base.
In October 2010 ForgetMeNot Africa enabled 25 million Nigerians
, 40 per cent of the country's mobile subscribers, to access email and online chat on standard SMS-capable mobile phone by deploying its technology with Glo Mobile
, part of the Globacom
group, Nigeria's
largest independent mobile network.
The launch rocketed Nigerians' access to the Internet
as previously only 24 million of the country's 150 million population had ever been online.
In November 2010 ForgetMeNot Africa launched its first service in Francophone Africa
with Warid Congo
, in the Central African state of Republic of the Congo
. The launch of the French version of the Message Optimiser technology transformed Warid Congo's 450,000 subscribers' basic mobile phones into virtual smartphones
, enabling them to send and receive email and online chat messages on any SMS-enabled mobile phone.
In February 2011 ForgetMeNot Africa's technology was deployed by Econet Wireless Zimbabwe
to transform the first generation handsets of its five million mobile phone subscribers into virtual smartphones. In June 2010, only one in eight Zimbabweans (1.4 million people) had access to the internet, according to the International Telecommunications Union. The eTXT service made email correspondence possible as a low-cost solution for large companies and small businesses, unifying both urban and rural areas of Zimbabwe
.
ForgetMeNot Africa say further African deployments are scheduled for 2011.
Creating, sending and receiving an eTXT is exactly the same as creating, sending and receiving an SMS. It requires minimal learning from the user as it is a natural SMS-based experience. The user can control their new email and IM capability all from their existing handset
without the need to upgrade their phone, change their data plan, download any applications or access the Internet from a PC. Emails and Chat can be sent cheaply anywhere in the world
and it enables users without a PC to access the benefits of mobile banking
, healthcare, travel and educational resources.
, license fees or capital expenditure
. The service is relevant to nearly all subscribers, helps to reduce churn rate
and can attract competitors' subscribers.
ForgetMeNot Software
ForgetMeNot Software is a mobile communications technology company. Founded in 2004 as a software developer for mobile appointment service reminders, the company quickly evolved into a specialist Software as a Service company for the mobile communications industry...
joined forces with investment company
Investment company
An investment company is a company whose main business is holding securities of other companies purely for investment purposes. The investment company invests money on behalf of its shareholders who in turn share in the profits and losses....
Lonzim Plc to create ForgetMeNot Africa, a subsidiary
Subsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
that's solely focused on providing unified messaging
Unified messaging
Unified Messaging is the integration of different electronic messaging and communications media technologies into a single interface, accessible from a variety of different devices....
and financial services
Financial services
Financial services refer to services provided by the finance industry. The finance industry encompasses a broad range of organizations that deal with the management of money. Among these organizations are credit unions, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, consumer finance companies,...
in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, and began deploying its technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
on the continent that same year, in Lesotho
Lesotho
Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. It is just over in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name...
. Lonzim Plc owns 51% of ForgetMeNot Africa and ForgetMeNot Software
ForgetMeNot Software
ForgetMeNot Software is a mobile communications technology company. Founded in 2004 as a software developer for mobile appointment service reminders, the company quickly evolved into a specialist Software as a Service company for the mobile communications industry...
own the remainder of the company.
ForgetMeNot Africa works with telecommunication companies to offer unified messaging services, such as email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
and online chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...
via standard mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s. It sees the market opportunity as the 3.5 billion mobile subscribers in the developing world who could use any SMS
SMS
SMS is a form of text messaging communication on phones and mobile phones. The terms SMS or sms may also refer to:- Computer hardware :...
capable mobile phone to send email and chat online without needing to upgrade or download any new applications onto their device.
Products & Technology
ForgetMeNot Africa's core product is eTXT which runs on the Message Optimiser platform allowing telecommunication companies, enterprisesBusiness
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
and social networks to offer their users two way interaction
Interaction
Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal effect...
on social media
Social media
The term Social Media refers to the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into an interactive dialogue. Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0,...
sites, as well as by email, instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
(IM) via SMS from and to any mobile phone regardless of its make or model.
ForgetMeNot Africa's Message Optimiser platform was awarded 'Best Innovation in a Mobile First Market' at the Meffys in July 2011, and won the 'Innovation in Messaging' award at the 160 Characters Mobile Messaging awards in June 2011.
African Mobile Network Operator
Mobile network operator
A mobile network operator , also known as mobile phone operator , carrier service provider , wireless service provider, wireless carrier, or cellular company, or mobile network carrier is a telephone company that provides services for mobile phone subscribers.One essential...
s using ForgetMeNot Africa’s eTXTing platform enable their subscribers to send and receive eTXT messages as an SMS, an email or online chat.
eTXT bridges the gap between PCs
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
and mobile orientated messaging without ever needing to have a PC or Internet access
Internet access
Many technologies and service plans for Internet access allow customers to connect to the Internet.Consumer use first became popular through dial-up connections in the 20th century....
. This is particularly suitable for developing nations where PC and Internet access percentages average in the low single digits.
In February 2011 ForgetMeNot Africa added the Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
functionality to its Message Optimiser platform. This enabled any mobile phone subscriber to an operator deploying the Message Optimiser technology to access Facebook Chat, update their profiles, ‘like’ their friends’ statuses and comment on threads via SMS.
Deployments
In September 2009 ForgetMeNot Africa helped Econet Telecom Lesotho to more than double the population's access.Lesotho’s
Lesotho
Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. It is just over in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name...
highly literate population struggles to access vital information, such as healthcare, travel and educational resources as according to the International Telecommunication Union
International Telecommunication Union
The International Telecommunication Union is the specialized agency of the United Nations which is responsible for information and communication technologies...
only 3.4 per cent of the population use the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. Expanding the country’s access to email via entry level, low end mobile phones improves access to information, communications with friends and family and trade to email by bringing two-way email to their entire mobile customer base
Customer base
The customer base is the group of customers and/or consumers that a business serves. In the most situations, a large part of this group is made up of repeat customers with a high ratio of purchase over time. These customers are the main source of consumer spending...
.
In May 2010 ForgetMeNot Africa helped Safaricom
Safaricom
Safaricom, Ltd is a leading mobile network operator in Kenya. It was formed in 1997 as a fully owned subsidiary of Telkom Kenya. In May 2000, Vodafone group Plc of the United Kingdom, the world's largest telecommunication company, acquired a 40% stake and management responsibility for the...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
’s largest telecommunications operator, give almost 9 in 10 of the population’s mobile phone subscribers access to email and online chat on their standard mobile phones when it rolled out its Kipokezi
Safaricom
Safaricom, Ltd is a leading mobile network operator in Kenya. It was formed in 1997 as a fully owned subsidiary of Telkom Kenya. In May 2000, Vodafone group Plc of the United Kingdom, the world's largest telecommunication company, acquired a 40% stake and management responsibility for the...
service.
Prior to the launch of Kipokezi fewer than one in ten Kenyans had accessed the Internet but the new service enabled more than one third of Kenya’s population to exchange email and online chat messages. Kenya’s number of mobile phone subscriptions has grown from just over 125,000 in 2000 to more than 17 million ten years later.
In September 2010 ForgetMeNot Africa, in partnership with Rapid Communications, deployed its technology with Kenya's yu, the mobile brand of Kenya's
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
third largest telecoms network Essar Telecom Kenya
Essar Group
The Essar Group is a multinational conglomerate corporation in the sectors of Steel, Energy, Power, Communications, Shipping Ports & Logistics as well as Construction head quartered at Mumbai, India...
. Using the Message Optimiser technology yu launched the Peperusha service, enabling it to bring mobile email and online chat on first-generation mobile phone handsets to its entire 1.6 million subscriber base.
In October 2010 ForgetMeNot Africa enabled 25 million Nigerians
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, 40 per cent of the country's mobile subscribers, to access email and online chat on standard SMS-capable mobile phone by deploying its technology with Glo Mobile
Globacom
Globacom Limited is a Nigerian multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. GLO is a privately owned telecommunications carrier that started operations on 29 August 2003. It currently operates in 4 countries in West Africa namely Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Ghana and...
, part of the Globacom
Globacom
Globacom Limited is a Nigerian multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. GLO is a privately owned telecommunications carrier that started operations on 29 August 2003. It currently operates in 4 countries in West Africa namely Nigeria, Republic of Benin, Ghana and...
group, Nigeria's
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
largest independent mobile network.
The launch rocketed Nigerians' access to the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
as previously only 24 million of the country's 150 million population had ever been online.
In November 2010 ForgetMeNot Africa launched its first service in Francophone Africa
African French
African French is the generic name of the varieties of French spoken by an estimated 115 million African people spread across 31 francophone African countries...
with Warid Congo
Warid Congo
Warid Congo is the newest Mobile Telecommunication Company in the Republic of Congo. The company is jointly owned by Abu Dhabi Group and the government of Congo.The company launched Commercial Service on 14th March 2008 in 11 cities and towns....
, in the Central African state of Republic of the Congo
Republic of the Congo
The Republic of the Congo , sometimes known locally as Congo-Brazzaville, is a state in Central Africa. It is bordered by Gabon, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo , the Angolan exclave province of Cabinda, and the Gulf of Guinea.The region was dominated by...
. The launch of the French version of the Message Optimiser technology transformed Warid Congo's 450,000 subscribers' basic mobile phones into virtual smartphones
Smartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
, enabling them to send and receive email and online chat messages on any SMS-enabled mobile phone.
In February 2011 ForgetMeNot Africa's technology was deployed by Econet Wireless Zimbabwe
Econet Wireless
Econet Wireless is Zimbabwe's principal mobile or cell phone company and was established by the Zimbabwean businessman, Strive Masiyiwa. It is now the nation's largest cell phone network having captured 73.3% of the market share...
to transform the first generation handsets of its five million mobile phone subscribers into virtual smartphones. In June 2010, only one in eight Zimbabweans (1.4 million people) had access to the internet, according to the International Telecommunications Union. The eTXT service made email correspondence possible as a low-cost solution for large companies and small businesses, unifying both urban and rural areas of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
.
ForgetMeNot Africa say further African deployments are scheduled for 2011.
Benefits to users
ForgetMeNot Africa's eTXT service enables rural communities with little or no access to PCs to communicate with each other, and their urban dwelling friends and family by email or chat from a standard mobile phone. Consequently, the eTXT service enables PC users in any country to communicate with people who have no access to a PC but who have a basic SMS capable phone.Creating, sending and receiving an eTXT is exactly the same as creating, sending and receiving an SMS. It requires minimal learning from the user as it is a natural SMS-based experience. The user can control their new email and IM capability all from their existing handset
Handset
On a telephone, the handset is a device the user holds to the ear to hear the audio sound. Modern-day handsets usually contain the phone's microphone as well, but in early telephones the microphone was mounted directly on the telephone itself, which often was attached to a wall at a convenient...
without the need to upgrade their phone, change their data plan, download any applications or access the Internet from a PC. Emails and Chat can be sent cheaply anywhere in the world
World
World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....
and it enables users without a PC to access the benefits of mobile banking
Mobile Banking
Mobile banking is a term used for performing balance checks, account transactions, payments, credit applications and other banking transactions through a mobile device such as a mobile phone or Personal Digital Assistant . The earliest mobile banking services were offered over SMS...
, healthcare, travel and educational resources.
Benefits to deployers
Giving subscribers the ability to eTXT drives SMS traffic, generating new revenue with very small levels of expenditure. The Message Optimiser platform that runs the eTXT service is implemented in under four weeks and generally requires no new hardwareHardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....
, license fees or capital expenditure
Capital expenditure
Capital expenditures are expenditures creating future benefits. A capital expenditure is incurred when a business spends money either to buy fixed assets or to add to the value of an existing fixed asset with a useful life extending beyond the taxable year...
. The service is relevant to nearly all subscribers, helps to reduce churn rate
Churn rate
Churn rate , in its broadest sense, is a measure of the number of individuals or items moving into or out of a collective over a specific period of time...
and can attract competitors' subscribers.