Mobile Emailing Without a Smart Phone New Services Make It Easier To Access User's Accounts On Standard Cellphones By JESSICA E. VASCELLARO June 12, 2007; Page D1 Consumers' obsession with sending and receiving email -- easily one of the most popular activities on the Internet -- is migrating onto mobile phones. Numerous companies are making it easier for anyone to send and receive email on their cellphones without splurging on a high-end device or a premium data plan. While the services are generally less sophisticated than the wireless email services offered by BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and other wireless email providers, they are starting to appeal to those who use email more for fun than business. Consilient Push, a mobile email service, is one of many new offerings. Consilient Technologies Corp. has begun selling mobile software that allows users to send and receive mail from multiple personal email accounts on some 400 different cellphones. The software communicates with the Consilient server, which is checking a user's email account for them. When it receives notice that users have received mail at their personal account, it pulls the messages and delivers them to the user's phone. Emoze Ltd., owned by Emblaze Ltd., launched an email service that will configure a user's phone to receive mail it routes from personal and work email accounts. The software, which can be downloaded to most cellphones, is currently free and will deliver emails to the in-box built in on the device, eliminating the need for users to open a separate application every time they want to check email. Teleflip Inc. is taking a different approach with its flipMail service, which allows cellphone users to read and reply to emails they receive from users they have in their address book. The service reformats users' emails so they can be sent over the operator's text-messaging channel but show up on the device resembling regular mail. FlipMail is now free but will soon begin to include advertisements in addition to offering a premium version for a few dollars a month. The services are starting to catch on among a new group of users interested in staying on top of their email on the go. While checking his email via Teleflip on his phone, Paul Brown, a 34-year-old software engineer, received a message from a friend telling him that NBA playoff tickets had just gone on sale. He called to purchase some instantly. "It's nice to get your emails right when they come up," says Mr. Brown, a software engineer from Austin, Texas, who says he doesn't want to pay for an additional data plan since he is usually near his computer. Others have begun using them in lieu of higher-priced services geared toward professionals. Paul Adams, a 35-year-old manager for a rock band who lives in New York City, recently bought a BlackJack smart phone from AT&T but chose not to pay for the fancy wireless email service that would have cost him an additional $60 a month. Instead he uses Consilient for $60 a year along with a data plan that's around $30 a month. He says the service stalls every few months or so and forces him to reboot, but he doesn't mind the glitch. "That probably doesn't happen with a BlackBerry," says Mr. Adams who says he's never liked the look -- or the cost -- of the BlackBerry device. "But I don't care." Leading Web mail companies are also improving the mobile mail experience. Yahoo Inc. has been expanding the availability of its Yahoo Go mobile service that allows users to receive Yahoo mail in real time on their phones instead of logging into a mobile Web site. Late last year, Google Inc. launched a mobile Gmail application that is faster and easier to use than logging into its mobile Web site, and says it might develop technology that would tell users they have received mail without having to refresh their in-box. The new services are aiming for a piece of the mobile email market that is dominated by corporate users. But that is forecast to change as handsets improve, the price of data plans drops and younger consumers rely on their phones as multipurpose communications hubs. The number of U.S. consumers who access personal email accounts on a mobile device is forecast to rise 55% to 17.4 million in 2007, up from 11.2 million in 2006, according to Strategy Analytics Inc., a market-research firm. "There is some latent demand on the part of consumers to get email on their phones," says Charles Golvin, principal analyst at Forrester Research, whose surveys show that only 11% of adults with cellphones use mobile email. "There is room for more players." To compete, new services are trying to mimic the experience companies have offered for professionals but with prices targeted at consumers. For instance, they deliver mail from users' existing accounts almost as soon as the email is received and often offer features like integration with the address book on the phone, calendar updating and the ability to view photos and attachments. And the services, most of which still require some sort of basic data plan, are creating new business models. Emoze, for instance, is free and the company plans to support itself by selling a corporate edition to large companies. Consilient's service, which costs $5 a month, also offers a free version that includes some scrolling text ads at the bottom of the screen and banner ads that surface between every few emails read. Still, most services aren't designed for corporate users, lacking features like some of those emphasizing speed and security. Some truncate emails or require users to preselect email address they can receive mail from, a measure they say is designed to cut down on spam. Like any mobile software users must download to their devices themselves, such services can be difficult to set up. While the new companies are trying to partner with handset makers and operators to make their services work across devices and carriers, there are no guarantees. And features, like whether you can view attachments, vary widely depending on the service and handset used. These services also face competition from other players trying to offer new wireless email services -- and extend existing ones -- toward consumers. Device makers like RIM, Palm Inc. and Motorola Inc. are starting to sell lower-price wireless email devices that are less clunky than traditional PDAs. These devices, and their accompanying email services, have advantages like a full keyboard, few set-up requirements and integration with other features on the phone, like the address book and camera. New approaches are in the works. Txtbl, a start-up, will begin selling a consumer device focused on wireless email early next year. "[Email] applications are hard to set up and people don't know how to type on their phones," says Amol Sarva, chief executive of Txtbl. The company's device, which will have a full keyboard and is currently known as "Mailster," will be sold commercially in two large electronics retailing chains for less than $100. Write to Jessica E. Vascellaro at jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com1 URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118161558503532181.html Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) mailto:jessica.vascellaro@wsj.com