Industry Wireless Founded 1998 | Founder Philippe Kahn Parent organization Verisign | |
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Type 1998-2005: Private
2005-2009: Subsidiary of VeriSign
2009-present: Subsidiary of Syniverse Key people Philippe Kahn, Founder
Sonia Lee, Co-Founder Headquarters Santa Cruz, California, United States | ||
Philippe Kahn and Sonia-Lee founded LightSurf in 1998, shortly after Kahn created the first camera phone for sharing pictures on public networks in 1997. LightSurf was formed to take advantage of the explosive convergence of wireless messaging technology, the Internet, and digital media.
LightSurf's core technology, the LightSurf 6 Open Standards MMS Platform, is a suite of hosted and managed MMS services that allows users to capture, view, annotate, and share multimedia messages with any handset or e-mail address, regardless of device, file type, or network operator.
LightSurf's products include the first mobile picture messaging solution in North America (GSM), the first mobile picture messaging solution on a GPRS carrier network, the first commercially deployed inter-carrier MMS solution in North America, the highest volume of picture and video messaging in North America and over 400 million media messages shared on Sprint’s network (powered by LightSurf).
In 2005, LightSurf was acquired by VeriSign. LightSurf was offered for sale as a part of a group of "Messaging Assets" purchased and developed by VeriSign in late 2008. The group was divested to Syniverse Technologies in late 2009.