ForgetMeNot Software is a mobile communications 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 ;...

 company. Founded in 2004 as a software developer

Software developer

A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...

 for mobile appointment service reminders, the company quickly evolved into a specialist Software as a Service

Software as a Service

Software as a service , sometimes referred to as "on-demand software," is a software delivery model in which software and its associated data are hosted centrally and are typically accessed by users using a thin client, normally using a web browser over the Internet.SaaS has become a common...

 company for the mobile communications industry. ForgetMeNot specialises in 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....

 for mobile telecoms providers, enabling them to provide message applications such as 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), 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 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 :...

 to their customers on their existing handheld devices, without needing a Smartphone

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...

.

The company has its headquarters in Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

 and has operations in the USA, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, 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...

 and 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...

.

Products, technology & uses

ForgetMeNot Software's tools are being used in the developing world, where rudimentary infrastructure

Infrastructure

Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

 and low penetration of 3rd generation 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...

s have traditionally proved a barrier to mobile messaging. ForgetMeNot's technology bridges the digital divide

Digital divide

The Digital Divide refers to inequalities between individuals, households, business, and geographic areas at different socioeconomic levels in access to information and communication technologies and Internet connectivity and in the knowledge and skills needed to effectively use the information...

 by eradicating the need for expensive smartphones, laptop

Laptop

A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...

s and Personal Computer

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...

s to access email 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...

 services which have traditionally only been enjoyed in countries such as those described by the World Bank

World Bank

The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

 as having high income economies. Users don't have to invest in sophisticated handsets, download new applications or undertake new data subscription plans, bringing mobile email and messaging within reach of anyone with a 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...

 capable of simple SMS. 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...

 of ForgetMeNot, ForgetMeNot Africa

ForgetMeNot Africa

ForgetMeNot Africa was created in 2009, when ForgetMeNot Software joined forces with investment company 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...

 provides these services to mobile telecommunications 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...

.

Financial institutions can use ForgetMeNot Software to turn every phone, no matter how basic, into a 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...

 and authentication

Authentication

Authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity...

 device. Abnormal or suspect transactions can instantly be verified with a mobile phone message to the customer. Bank account holders can also have fully archived, two-way interaction using chat, email or SMS directly from their mobile phone with the bank.

ForgetMeNot Software also integrates with companies’ customer relationship management

Customer relationship management

Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...

 systems. Simple one-way messaging systems don't provide a cost effective or elegant mechanism for customer acceptance, feedback or fulfilment. Enterprises need messaging systems which allow for two-way communication between themselves and the customer. ForgetMeNot Software's eTXT platform enables digital messages to be sent to and received from consumers which can then be properly categorized and tracked, adding a powerful new tool for companies to maintain and manage customer relationships.

History

ForgetMeNot was founded in 2004 by experts in the mobile software and finance industries. Originally, the focus of the company was the development of a mobile appointment reminder service; however, the ForgetMeNot team soon became frustrated at the difficulties of staying in touch with each other, owing to the various mobile devices, messaging channels and communications protocols that each team member was using.

The lack of a simple, unified messaging service convinced ForgetMeNot's team of the importance of creating a single, unified mobile messaging tool that would bridge the gap between 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...

  and traditional mobile messaging, and which could enable even the most basic of mobile devices, on any telecoms carrier, to receive email and online chat.

Since 2005, ForgetMeNot Software has developed a range of patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 pending mobile communications technologies, including applications for mobile banking 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,...

, small businesses and enterprise and other applications.

Ownership

ForgetMeNot Software is a private Hong Kong company co-founded by John Carroll, a former IPTV engineer at Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

, Paul Roberts and Andrew Smyth.