France Telecom is the main telecommunications company in France, the third largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 191,000 people (half outside of France) and has nearly 159 million customers worldwide (2007).

Business Case
The main idea was to allow France Telecom customers to communicate via virtual phone numbers instead of real phone numbers, which is keeping private.
A customer may send text messages from his virtual number anywhere and receive replies on his cell/land line phones (via TTS), e-mail account, IM, on web or desktop widget, Twitter, or Facebook application.

Solution
SolveITLabs has developed composite application consisting of the Web part and the Clients, deployed on the iPhone, Android and Facebook.
Web interface allows a user to communicate instantly with individuals via text messaging. The member’s phone number stays private, and the System gives complete control over which messages can come into their cell phone and which get routed to their other services (like IM, email, Twitter, iPhone application, desktop widget or web widget):

User can add a Widget to his online profile or blog and receive messages from prospects worldwide while keeping both parties' phone numbers private.

The System works with popular social networks and communities such as Facebook (Facebook application) and Twitter.

Once a user is registered, the System generates member’s live contact page, where visitors can learn more about the member and view the online profiles the member may have on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or other social networks and blogging platforms. Visitors can also review the topics the member is interested in talking about and contact them using their regular mobile phone. Visitors can also reach the member without having an account of their own.

Basic operation overview

• User can choose a personalized virtual number and send messages from this number and receive replies straight into his accounts SMS inbox. These can then be forwarded to an Email of user’s choice, his mobile / land line phone, or even widget.
• User can manage his messages on the system (delete messages, reply, or send a new message). He can store old messages and check back on them whenever he needs.
• User can manage his contacts (block, delete, and add new contacts)
• User can import his webmail contacts (Yahoo, Gmail, or MSN hotmail accounts).

• User can manage his profile information.
• User can put desktop Widget using Google desktop widgets.
• User can register for iPhone/Facebook applications.

Facebook application – widget-like application integrated with Facebook; allows Facebook customers to add widget like content to their profile page. Facebook customers can download the application from Facebook application list.

iPhone Native application – widget-like application for iPhone that allows customers to view messages from their virtual number, send SMS messages, manage contacts and services.

The registration process happens via web application.
Once a user has been authenticated, the application loads their messages and contacts from the web server.

Tools and Technologies

• Symfony PHP framework;
• AJAX;
• MySQL database;
• Clickatell SMS API for sending SMS messages using the Clickatell gateway;
• iPhone SDK;
• Android SDK open-source development environment.