#FACEBOOK on a SIM card!

Gemalto has managed to get Facebook running on a SIM chip, making every GSM phone a Facebook phone and bringing social networking to the dumbest of handsets.

(Mobile World Congress, Barcelona, Feb 14, 2011) - Gemalto (Euronext NL0000400653 GTO), the world leader in digital security, announced Facebook for SIM, which enables anyone to enjoy the service on all handsets, even if without a data connection or data subscription. With this announcement, Gemalto brings Facebook to millions of mobile phone users regardless of their handset type.

“Increasingly people want to be able to stay connected and communicate with their friends on Facebook anytime, anywhere,” said Henri Moissinac, Head of Mobile Business, Facebook. “Gemalto has developed a creative solution in Facebook for SIM that enables people without mobile data plans to stay connected to their friends on Facebook in an affordable way.”

Gemalto’s software development team has embedded the software application into the SIM. This ensures the Facebook application is compatible with 100% of SIM-compliant mobile phones.

The SIM-based client isn't as pretty as its smartphone contemporaries – don't expect picture streams or sliding interfaces – but it was developed with the help of Facebook, and provides text-menu-based interaction with Facebook – including status updates, pokes and friend requests – to any GSM-compatible handset through the magic of the GSM SIM Toolkit and Class 2 SMS messages.