New mobile mail services could be Blackberry crusher
RIM without a view
CHUCK AWAY your Blackberries, they’re useless now. No hang on, they’re not useless. But you can now get emails on your phone much cheaper. You can pick up emails on any phone now, thanks to two new software rival innovators.
A UK company with the snappy name of Work Out of Office offers you Always On Mail, starting from £65 a year. You go on the web site select your handset and you get some software to load on your mobile. Then you enter your POP3 account details, and you’re away. You can pick up spam on the train. Woo-hoo!
If it’s a work related account, you do the same as you would for a Blackberry. Install software on a server, then your PC and your phone become synchronised. You can synchronise emails, your calendar and contacts too.
Mark D’Arcy, MD of Work Out of Office, reckons his software handles attachments better than the Blackberry. Well he would do wouldn’t he? You can even get your hotmail accounts on your Nokia.
Momail has gone a stage further, and gives away its mobile mailing service free. Why are they giving it away free? Is it crap? No, they’re trying to build themselves a massive user base after which they can start marketing various other services at their captive audience. Basic email will be free, confirms Momail PR man Lars Aase by email (while he was on the train home from Stockholm). Emails will even be optimised, so a 3MB picture will be 12 KB by the time it reaches your phone.
How can they do this? If founder Roger Gronberg some kind of philanthropist? Of course not. “Email is free, but you will want to pay for premium or plus services, like extra storage, or email or phone backup,” says Aase. Advertising might on the cards too, although he promises you can opt out.
Hang on though. If I’m suddenly going to be receiving hundreds of emails on my mobile phone, doesn’t that mean Orange will clobber me mercilessly for data charges?
Not necessarily, says D’Arcy at Work out of the Office. “Everything is heavily compressed and encrypted, so even a heavy user should only use a meg or two of data every month.” I hope so. Momail is negotiating with 25 operators on licensing deals..
It takes two minutes to sign up, promises Momail’s Aase. Whether I’ll be repenting at leisure, when my phone bill comes in, is another matter.
Posers apart, who needs a Blackberry now? Blackberry declined to comment. µ
Comments
Blackberry
> Posers apart, who needs a Blackberry now? Blackberry declined to comment.People who want some kind of security and accountability in a mobile email device need a Blackberry. Whn some idiot leaves a smart-phone connected to one of these services on the train how do you delete all the email off it?
gmail
gmail on the phone is all i need... it's free on the 3 network too on my tariff, i can check my email on the go and reply etc it's all fine and dandy... i can also search my archive of emails! (and with gmail, that's very very big)google is the way forward everyone!