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SMS Co-Inventor Matti Makkonen Dead At 63

Posted by timothy on from the too-shrt dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC News reports that Matti Makkonen, a 'grand old man of mobile industry' who helped launch the worldwide sensation of texting, has died at the age of 63 after an illness. Although planning to retire later in 2015 from the board of Finnet Telecoms, Makkonen constantly remained fascinated with communications technologies, from the Nokia 2010 mobile phone to 3G connections. He lived just enough to witness the last remnants of former Finnish mobile industry giant Nokia disappear, as Redmond announced its intent last month to convert all Nokia stores into Microsoft-branded Authorized Reseller and Service Centers, offering Xbox game consoles alongside the Nokia-derived Lumia range of smartphones.

31 comments

  1. His obituary by Virtucon · · Score: 3, Funny

    Was 160 characters.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
    1. Re:His obituary by Marginal+Coward · · Score: 1

      See http://bbc.in/1LA1Zn2 for details.

  2. Probably texted for a doctor... by Viol8 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    ... but it didn't get there for 24 hours.

    1. Re:Probably texted for a doctor... by antdude · · Score: 1

      Or never got through. I have lost many SMSes through the Internet with AIM and e-mails. :(

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    2. Re:Probably texted for a doctor... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On Finnish networks, SMS rarely gets lost or delayed. This maybe has the unfortunate effect of making people rely too much on its reliability, which after all is not guaranteed by the spec. Anyway, Mr. Makkonen died after suffering a long illness, not because he did not get help in time. Rest in peace.

  3. Couldn't summarize it in 140 characters? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I see this guy kind of like Woz:

    Matti: hey here's a free feature we can add using the existing heartbeat functionality in the system!
    PHB: wait, we can SELL this

    1. Re:Couldn't summarize it in 140 characters? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Isn't SMS 160 characters? Where did you get 140?

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      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    2. Re:Couldn't summarize it in 140 characters? by Eunuchswear · · Score: 3, Informative

      140? What is this 140 characters of which you speak?

      SMS is 140 octets, either 160 characters (7 bit gsm.03.38 code) or 80 characters (utf-16).

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    3. Re:Couldn't summarize it in 140 characters? by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      Many services (like Twitter) reserve 20 characters for user address

    4. Re:Couldn't summarize it in 140 characters? by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      Get off my lawn.

      Twitter -- ack pfft.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    5. Re:Couldn't summarize it in 140 characters? by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      indeed, twitter is twats tweeting to twits

    6. Re:Couldn't summarize it in 140 characters? by jones_supa · · Score: 1

      He was probably thinking Twitter.

    7. Re:Couldn't summarize it in 140 characters? by blazer1024 · · Score: 1

      I seem to remember in the late 90's or very early 2000's you could use SMS for free (I forget the carrier I used... one of those that eventually became part of Verizon). Nobody seemed to care about it...then the teenagers found it and suddenly it was $0.20 a message.

  4. OMG by operagost · · Score: 0

    WTF? YOLO. RIP

    --

    Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
  5. The meta-tags are very informative this time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    death, finland, mobile.

    Very telling.

  6. OMG - matti makkonen .fi sms pioneer dead by Rei · · Score: 0

    A more appopriate version of the BBC's article:

    ---------------
    OMG - matti makkonen .fi sms pioneer dead!!!
    ---------------
    WTF - mm just died @63! #txtpioneerdeath was father of sms & dvlped idea of txt msg with phones. @2012 msged BBC that txt would be here "4EVR".
    --------------
    shoutout 2 Nokia for spreading sms w/Nokia 2010. thought txt good 4 language. was btw mng. director of Finnet ltd and "grand old man" & rly obsessed with tech.
    --------------
    OMFG people!

    --
    Dear Lord: One of your creatures may be hurt tonight. Please let it be the other creature.
  7. And now his watch has ended. by onthemightofprinces · · Score: 1

    He's gone on to the second text now.

  8. The last remnants of Nokia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "He lived just enough to witness the last remnants of former Finnish mobile industry giant Nokia disappear"

    WTF, now this trolling takes place in the summary itself. Earlier we had to wait for comments for this piece of misinformation.
    Nokia still has a strong network business (not to mention HERE maps and extensive patent portfolio) and some 57,000 employees, thank you.

    1. Re:The last remnants of Nokia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have not been following along. The Nokia that MS got is NOT the Nokia that was left behind in Finland with the network and map business.

      Try to keep up.

    2. Re:The last remnants of Nokia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is the same company actually. Just the operations of the sister company Nokia Siemens Networks were joined to the main company.

    3. Re:The last remnants of Nokia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Nokia that was "left behind" is the same Nokia that during the years has been in the business of making and selling e.g. rubber boots, televisions, set-top boxes, mobile phones, network equipment, car tyres and so on. Some of those businesses have been sold away since, including mobile phones division, but the company marches on.

      Things change. Try to keep up.

    4. Re:The last remnants of Nokia? by marsu_k · · Score: 1

      And right now trying to sell off HERE, if you haven't been keeping up with the news. At the moment it seems a consortium of German auto manufacturers is the likeliest buyer.

  9. Moment of silence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    We should all observe a period of 160 seconds of no texting at noon today.

    1. Re:Moment of silence by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      I was thinking of everyone should send each other 160 characters of spaces, texting silence

  10. Nokia is not dead, their handset business is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Nokia hasn't disappeared. Nokia has gone to where it was before it came to mobile handset business: in telecom network business. Nokia - yes, company by that name - is doing quite well now where it has been strong all along. It is not consumer-sexy business, but every handset needs the network to be useful.

    Reasonably large portion of Finnish ex-Nokians actually think part of the strategy Nokia executed ending in the sale of handset business to Microsoft was that they had recognized direction of things better than Microsoft, and decided to take the money, and go from overly commoditized handset business back to network business where both commoditization was not crippling profits and where engineering - even research still mattered. Now it seems that was actually a sensible bet.

    It's sad that popular image makes Nokia only a failed handset company, and paints companies like Apple as great inventors of the market. If Nokians wouldn't have had their position also on the network business, SMS might not have gone anywhere in practice. To a great extent the cellular revolution was and is powered by network engineering - handset engineering and productization came only later. But apparently consumers - and journalists - care of networks only when those don't work. When they do, they take the incredible amount of engineering that has went to global mobile networks for granted - which it hardly is.

    1. Re:Nokia is not dead, their handset business is by Viol8 · · Score: 1

      "It's sad that popular image makes Nokia only a failed handset company, and paints companies like Apple as great inventors of the market."

      Actually Motorola built the first cellular phone but lets not let facts get in the way. And lets not pretend that Nokia made the decision to quit the handset business out of choice. They fucked up. Badly.

      And for all the cries of "Well, Nokias doing nicely now thanks", which company out of Nokia and Apple currently has $178 BILLION of cash reserves in the bank? If Nokia management had been a bit bolder in the mid 2000s it could have been them.

      I'm not a fan of Apple, but lets be realistic, they could buy Nokia outright and not really even notice the different in their bank balance.

    2. Re:Nokia is not dead, their handset business is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I understand Motorola, but what has Apple contributed to the communications side of cellular networking? Zilch.

      For that 178 billion - I'm not quite certain how to think of that as an argument. Are you an Apple stockholder? If you are not, it's an argument that doesn't make much sense to me. Are you are wooed by money, surely you are a great fan of Saudi Aramco? Oh, why not?

      My point is mostly that there are maybe half a dozen to dozen companies that do most of the interesting radio-end work on global mobile communications. Those that do research and make cellular network improvements happen. Nokia, among others is still firmly on that game. These companies are mostly unknown to the consumer, and Nokia-the-handset-maker was the giant outlier on that regard. In my opinion, these companies should get their share of respect in the Slashdot crowd for making things happen.

      Handset-oriented manufacturers - well, I think it was interesting environment to be in the late nineties. Nowadays it's about as interesting thing as being a desktop PC manufacturer. You piece your product together from mostly ready-made or general-purpose components, and that's it. When individual phones were engineering feats it made sense Nokia to be on that business, and they succeeded. Now it's time for others to do it, either through price competition or premium branding. But still, it increasingly resembles sexiness and market position of being an OEM desktop PC manufacturer for almost all of the players, even if their products would be pretty good.

  11. Doot-doot-doot doooooooooot-dooooot doot-doot-doot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doot-doot-doot doooooooooot-dooooot doot-doot-doot.....

  12. Shoemaker by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nokia made great rubber boots. They should have stuck to their last.

  13. Was He Well Compensated for His Invention? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd like to know if we was well paid for his work. It would be comforting to know there is good reason to keep building things, inventing things, and pushing the technological and scientific envelopes. Did he at least die a millionaire?

    I'm sensitive to this issue because my great grandfather worked for a local government in the greater Los Angeles area, and he invented a method to call for help that later became the 911 system that is implemented nationwide. Since he was an employee, all he got for his effort was his usual paycheck and nothing more. I wouldn't try to guess how many lives were saved by 911 since it was invented.

    I would like to know that people in the private sector get their just rewards when they invent cool things.

    1. Re:Was He Well Compensated for His Invention? by bws111 · · Score: 1

      It is called 'being an employee'. You trade in the ability to get rich for the relative safety of a steady paycheck.

      Britain had 999 30 years before the US had 911. Your grandfather may have had something to do with 911, but he did not 'invent' it.