Stockholm-based Momail, a free consumer-focused mobile service that lets you read and answer your emails from your mobile conveniently and cheaply, launches in the UK tomorrow. The site essentially acts as a gateway, optimising emails before delivering them to your phone. It does this by keeping track of 2300 phones across 450 features including screen resolution, screen size, pixel depth, graphics processing power, and the phone’s ability to open pdf’s and other attachments.
To make it work you enter your phone number, operator and the make and model of your phone on the Momail site. It then sends the phone settings which automatically configure the email client in the phone.
The advantage? If your friend sends you an email with some large picture attachments then Momail will resize those pictures to fit your screen resolution and image formats, costing you less when you stream the data and making the email readable on your phone. This is the main feature of Momail, among a few others. You can also add other email accounts to your Momail service and it does push email.
In fact, Momail’s founder & CEO, Roger Grönberg is postioning the company to be a carrier of digital content optimised for the receiving mobile – not just email. So for instance if you wanted to send a ringtone to a friend you would usually use Bluetooth but Momail wants people to get into the habit of using their product, which tracks all these different makes of mobiles. By being at the centre of all communication and content exchange Momail is clearly positioning itself as a carrier-independent gatekeeper.