MTN incubator launches desktop SMS

Johannesburg, 26 Sept 2002

MTN incubator Airborn, best known for creating the MTNSMS.com Web site, has launched a new project targeting both the youth and corporate messaging markets.

SMSpop (www.smspop.com) has been operational for about a month but is only now being introduced to South African users. At its heart is a small desktop application that allows users to send and receive SMS messages directly on any PC with an Internet connection.

We wanted to wrestle one square inch of the desktop from Microsoft.
Sam Michel, chief of e, Airborn

Incoming SMSs can be forwarded to a cellphone and the application allows for messages to be sent to multiple recipients.

Although incoming messages are free, outgoing messages are charged for in units known as "pops", with an SMS costing either one or two pops depending on the receiving network. Bundled in packages ranging from 80 to 1 100, the pops range in price from 40c to just over 60c.

Like MTNSMS, there are no plans to market the site or service to the public, but Airborn says it already has 150 000 users, most of whom registered for a free trial, while "several thousand" are paying users. Most are from countries like Australia and New Zealand.

This could expand dramatically as it introduces the database of seven million users it holds after the free section of MTNSMS was closed down. Less than 5% of those users were South African.

"We are going to be under the radar as always, we don`t want to hype it up," says Sam Michel, who holds the title "chief of e" at Airborn. "We don`t want to give an indication of the figures but we certainly have high hopes."

Currently a credit card is required to purchase pops, and Michel says more than 70% of the "youth minded" audience of MTNSMS cannot or will not conduct such payment. But a trial will soon be launched where a single call to a premium rate number will deduct the required amount from a contract or prepaid balance. He expects paying usage to increase dramatically when this "pay by RIVR" option is introduced.

Corporate market

While young people were the lifeblood of MTNSMS and are expected to be the bulk of SMSpop users, they are not the only target. Michel says an experiment where MTN personal assistants had the application installed was a great success.

"They were in constant communication with their boss while being on the PC all the time. They could just send a message to a group to set up a meeting and get the responses right on the PC. The objective is to bundle it with a contract for corporates eventually."

Airborn sees SMSpop as a natural progression from MTNSMS, even though that site was forced to shut down because it could not carry the costs of sending SMSs internationally. Michel says the database built up through MTNSMS, the engine developed for it and the lessons learnt from running it, are what make the new system possible.

"We wanted to leverage the assets we have," he says. "We wanted to wrestle one square inch of the desktop from Microsoft."

But most of all, he contends, it is Airborn`s understanding of the minimalist and anti-establishment mindset that young people bring to SMS that will make it a success.

"In the youth culture SMS is more than just a bearer, it is more than just technology. When we were young you would see a beautiful girl and be too afraid to go up and talk to her. There was just fantasy. Today you can spend hours being spontaneous and work out every character of an SMS. You can hide behind the technology and play out the fantasy."