Berggi Inc. Introducing E-mail and Instant Messaging Service for Lower-End Phones

While the use of e-mail and instant messaging software is very common among PC users, you will require a more expensive, 'high-tech' handheld to be able to use the same services on your mobile.

Luckily, a start-up founded by a group of successful European entrepreneurs aims to offer these services for more basic, low-cost mobile phones that still represent two thirds of the US mobile market, thus enabling users to send and receive e-mails and use instant messaging services without changing their phone.
"Our uniqueness is that we are the only application that runs on mid- to lower-end phones," Babur Ozden, the head of Berggi Inc. said in an interview. Users in the UK, Italy, Turkey and Mexico will be able to benefit from the 'Berggi' service starting from the first half of 2007. In the U.S. the service costs $9.99 a month, and customers can sign up on the company's website beginning on Thursday.

European users will pay by the data they consume, 10 to 20 e-mails costing approximately one euro. Berggi delivers any text in the body of e-mail but not document attachments.