Microsoft and Gemalto bring Windows Live Messenger to SIM cards

First motion detecting SIM cards, now this? Here in Barcelona, Microsoft and Gemalto are tag-teaming in order to bring Windows Live Messenger to otherwise vanilla SIM cards. The application, dubbed SIMessenger, is said to be the planet's first Microsoft-certified instant messaging SIM client solution. Essentially, this enables handsets even without a dedicated WLM client to still stay in touch (via SMS) with their long list of buddies, and evidently three operators -- Oi in Brazil, Personal S.A. in Argentina and Movistar in Peru -- have already started supplying them to customers. Call us crazy, but we get the impression that these won't be headed Stateside anytime soon.

[Robbie Hottie Posted Feb 20th 2009 3:29AM]

this seems unnecessary. cant u already use text to IM? ive been doing it on aim for yearsssss. so i dont believe wlm didnt already have it.

[JAmerican Posted Feb 18th 2009 4:34AM]

So instead of making SIM cards smaller (lets say near the size of a MicroSD card) they are placing applications on it now. Talk about bloatware possibilities from your carrier.

Next, they'll charge us to remove it (cough Sony).