MeOnGo (for ‘mobile email on the go’) is a WAP-based, mobile emailing service. It works with most of the popular email services (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Rediffmail, Indiatimes) and these can be accessed using POP/IMAP. You don’t need to download/install any software on your phone. All you need is any GPRS/EDGE/3G/ CDMA based phone with a mobile WAP browser. To understand how it works, check out this section on their website. MeOnGo comes from a Ahmedabad based MVAS (Mobile Value-Added Services) solutions provider called Net4Nuts, whose clients include leading telcos (Airtel, Idea, Hutch, Orange etc).
Meongo believes that they offer two key advantages as compared to various other mobile email providers. Firstly, their service works on any browsing enabled phone, whether XHTML OR WML based (webmail offerings from leading email providers work typically on XHTML phones). Secondly their service does not require a phone client and hence is less susceptible to phone/OS incompatibilities. They have a couple of offerings- a free version aimed at individual users and a corporate version for enterprises. The basic service in both cases is free – individual users have a restriction on the no. of mailboxes they can configure while enterprises have a restriction of users they can authorize for access. Future plans include a premium services with a monthly subscription (app Rs.50/ for individuals & Rs. 100/user for enterprises). MeOnGo claims to have 30K users across 100+ countries, growing at the rate of 2.5K per week. Bulk of their users are from emerging economies, with India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Kenya, Israel, South Africa, Bangladesh & Indonesia featuring in the top 10 countries. About 90% of the usage is related to checking/reading of emails and the balance 10% comprises of all the other email actions (delete, reply, forward etc).
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How is it different from Blackberry?
In terms of functionality… Blackberry is a “push” solution – wherein it works with you mail server to detect and push new emails directly to the mobile device. It is targetted mostly towards the top-end corporate users and has very poor support for most popular consumer email services. MeOnGo on the other hand is a “pull” solution – where the user needs to connect to MeOnGo to access emails (similar to how most users access email today). MeOnGo is designed keeping in minds the needs of a the average consumer – it is simple, fully functional, yet works with any of the user’s email services.
In terms of system requirements… Blackberry requires a (high-end) mailserver capable of working with its solution, it requires a (high-end) Blackberry compatible device, and it requires a (high-end) mobile data plan for it to function. MeOnGo works through the mobile phone’s browser – meaning there is no needs to download, install or configure any software. More importantly, it works with ANY browsing-enabled GPRS/CDMA mobile. And since it is a browsing solution… there is no needs for any expensive data-plan (except the basic, browsing plan).
In terms of cost… average costs of using a Blackberry like solution are in the range of $30-$50 pm. MeOnGo is a free service – where users only pay for the data consumed ~$1 pm.
Chirag,
thnaks for the explanation; I was also not completely sure about the difference.
One question crosses my mind- you mentioned 30K users with many of them outside India and this has happened without any specific outreach program. How has this happened? Any cues that you can share for public consumption
amit
Hi Chirag,
Congrats for this launch ! It’s good to see Net4Nuts leading the innovation path among all ISPs and VAS providers.
I met you at Nirmalabs this summer and found your talk very interesting and inspiring.
Blackberry’s refusal to work directly with the existing corporate mail servers and instead requiring an additional Blackberry Enterprise Server is one of my main gripes with Blackberry. As I speak, they are facing another outage. And they have started working with few non-RIM devices only recently.
MeOnGo’s support for any POP/IMAP server is an awesome feature and gives control back in the hands of the user. Now I just wish it would be possible to get mails on my trusty old Nokia 1100.
Maybe it is time for me to finally upgrade.
cheers
nliesh
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