Matti Makkonen, widely considered as the “father of SMS” after developing the idea of sending messages via mobile networks has died from illness at the age of 63. Matti Makkonen (16 April 1952 – 26 June 2015) was a Finnish engineer in the field of mobile communications. He was employed (among others) by Nokia Networks and Tele Finland, as well as Finnet Oy. Matti Makkonen played a leading role in creating the mobile communication unit of what is today TeliaSonera. He was quick to downplay his involvement and saw SMS as a “joint effort” between many people (Friedham Hillebrand developed the 160-character format in 1985, for example), but much of the initial credit belongs to him. In 2008, Matti Makkonen was awarded The Economist Innovation Award in the computing and telecommunications category for his work on text messaging (SMS).
Makkonen was often quick to point out that he did not invent the technology single-handedly. In 2012, he told BBC News – in an SMS interview – that he believed texting in some form would be around “forever”.
Suffice it to say that Makkonen’s work has spread far and wide. SMS is starting to decline as instant messaging apps take over, but it’s still ubiquitous — how many people do you know who would much rather get a text message than a phone call? Twitter’s roots are in SMS (hence that 140-character limit), and the tech is still considered vital for communication in areas where mobile internet access is too expensive, heavily censored or both.