Clickatell

Clickatell

Type	Private
Industry	Mobile Communications
Area served	Worldwide
Products	List Clickatell Gateway Communicator 2 Messenger-PRO Mobile Marketer SMS Bundles Messaging Market
Employees	100+
Website	[www.clickatell.com]

Clickatell is a privately held mobile communications company founded in 2000 and headquartered in Redwood City, CA, with offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa^[1] and Laos, Nigeria.^[2] Clickatell delivers short message service (SMS) messages through its Clickatell Gateway^[3] to mobile phone users through more than 800 networks in more than 220 countries and territories, with the potential to reach five billion mobile phone users, or more than 70 percent of the world’s population.^[4] Clickatell’s customer base includes more than 10,000 small, medium and large enterprises in a variety of industries that all need software as a service (SaaS) messaging services and bulk SMS gateway connectivity.^[1]

History

The company was originally founded to address a need in South Africa for an SMS provider that could enable the sending of multiple texts to different countries from a single website. Clickatell was first to offer global SMS delivery from a simple web interface.^[5]

In 2006, the company acquired assets of Multimode, Inc., an application service provider that offers global delivery of time-critical notifications to communication devices of all types,^[6] and established its headquarters in Redwood City, CA. In 2008 Clickatell received venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital and became a USA private company backed by large private equity investors.^[2]

In 2009, Clickatell provided the U.S. Department of State (USDOS) with mobile message service to enable it to give African and international/non-U.S. citizens around the world live speech highlights during a speech given by President Obama from Accra, Ghana. In addition, enrolled participants were able to send comments via text message back to the USDOS, where selected responses were posted online.^[7][8] Clickatell’s involvement in this service resulted in a World Technology Award nomination from the World Technology Network in association with TIME magazine, Fortune Magazine, and Science Magazine for work of "the greatest likely long-term significance" in Communications and Technology Sector.^[9]

Technology

Clickatell’s SMS gateway enables businesses, financial institutions, governments, and communities to leverage mobile messaging to inform, alert, notify, transact, interact, and share.^[10]

Integration with a variety of front-end and legacy systems is carried out via a range of application programming interface (API) connections. These offer developers a choice of connection options (HTTP/S, SMPP, SMTP, FTP, XML, SOAP) which are suited to a wide spectrum of usage.^[11] Developer support includes developer forums, 24/7 phone and email support, and script libraries available for PHP, VB.Net, VBScript, Cold Fusion, and C#.^[12]

Competition

Syniverse^[5] mBlox5^[5] Sybase 365 (now SAP)^[13] Open Market^[13]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Clickatell | CrunchBase Profile". Crunchbase.com. 2011-04-08. http://www.crunchbase.com/company/clickatell-inc. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Interoperability will unlock the potentials of mobile financial services in Africa – Pieter de Villiers". Mobile Money Africa. 2011-07-12. http://mobilemoneyafrica.com/interoperability-will-unlock-the-potentials-of-mobile-financial-services-in-africa-pieter-de-villiers/. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
3. ^ "Clickatell (Pty) Ltd.: Private Company Information - BusinessWeek". Investing.businessweek.com. http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=8200329. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
4. ^ "Clickatell Garners $12,000,000 Series B Funding Round". Xconomy. 2011-02-28. http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2011/02/28/clickatell-garners-12000000-series-b-funding-round/. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
5. ^ ^{a b c} "Apps are no threat to SMS - Clickatell on why mobile text will never die". Gomonews.com. 2010-09-20. http://www.gomonews.com/apps-are-no-threat-to-sms-clickatell-on-why-mobile-text-will-never-die/. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
6. ^ "Clickatell Merges with MultiMode, Inc.; Moves Headquarters to U.S. and Expands the Reach of Messaging and Alerts to All Communication Devices Around the Globe". Mobile Africa. 2006-04-15. http://www.mobileafrica.net/clickatell-merges-with-multimode-inc-moves-headquarters-to-u-s-and-expands-the-reach-of-messaging-and-alerts-to-all-communication-devices-around-the-globe/. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
7. ^ "Comments to President Obama". America.gov. http://www.america.gov/ghana_comments.html. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
8. ^ Butcher, Dan (2009-07-15). "Obama’s Ghana speech highlights delivered live via SMS - Mobile Marketer - Messaging". Mobile Marketer. http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/messaging/3674.html. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
9. ^ "The World Technology Summit & Awards 2009". Wtn.net. http://www.wtn.net/summit2009/. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
10. ^ "PDAs, Handhelds, Mobile Computing & Wireless Technology". MobileVillage. http://www.mobilevillage.com/yp/clickatell.htm. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
11. ^ "Clickatell API Profile". Programmableweb.com. http://www.programmableweb.com/api/clickatell. Retrieved 2011-10-13. 
12. ^ http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/Clickatell-ChamberofCommercecom-Offer-Connectivity-Platform-for-Businesses-293842/
13. ^ ^{a b} Casey, Kevin (2011-02-28). "Clickatell Intros Text Messaging Service For SMBs - Smb - Mobile/Wireless". Informationweek. http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/mobile/229219502. Retrieved 2011-10-13.