Google Tries Mobile E-Mail Again (Non US/Canada Users also)

Burlingame, Calif. – Checking e-mail on a basic cellphone isn’t easy. Google says it can fix this with a new version of its mobile Gmail application that it released Thursday.

The new software will be an upgrade for most phone owners, though people with older phones will be limited to the clumsier version that’s been out since December 2005. But the audience that Google (nasdaq: GOOG – news – people ) and other e-mail services are courting–people who’d like to get their mail on the go, but not enough to pony up for BlackBerry or a Treo–may still not be receptive.

To join the new wave of phone-based e-mail, users must make sure they subscribe to a wireless carrier’s data plan, then delve into the menu system in their phone to find the Web browser, type in the proper address and click download.??? And before users can decide if they want to jump through multiple hoops, they have to know the option is available to them.

Many don’t. From June to August, only 9.8% of mobile subscribers tried to access e-mail via their cellphones, according to research firm M:Metrics. Of those subscribers, two-thirds of them used the Web browser on their phone to reach their e-mail inbox. About 15%, or 2.8 million people, downloaded an application–likely from Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO – news – people ), Time Warner’s (nyse: TWX – news – people ) AOL or a third party–to get to e-mail. Yahoo!, AOL and Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT – news – people ) have offered browser-based mobile mail for longer than Google has.

Yahoo! mail users are most willing to give phone-mail a try–8.6 million of them did this summer–which could be one reason why Google is bending over backward to make mobile e-mail even easier for Gmail users. About 2.3 million Gmail users accessed Google’s browser-based version over the summer, according to M:Metrics.

And Google’s new mobile Gmail software, once it has been downloaded, is relatively easy to use–archiving a message takes 11 clicks on the old version but only two clicks on the new version. People who own one of 300 different phone models will now be able to view PDFs, Microsoft Word documents and attached photos, Google says.

This looks and feels a lot like the Gmail people are used to on their computers–so mobile usage will grow; it just takes time,” says Google product manager Tony Hsieh. “People will learn.??? The stakes, as per usual with Google when it isn’t selling advertising, aren’t very high–Google has no plans to make money directly from the product, says Hsieh.

The one-click access??? that a Java-based e-mail application provides is a compelling enhancement over browser-based mail, says Weston Henderek of Current Analysis, but an e-mail application can live or die based on where it is placed on a cellphone carrier’s deck???–the program launch pad a user sees when he opens his phone and clicks on Web??? and then E-Mail.??? For the last year, Web-based e-mail icons or buttons from the four major e-mail providers have appeared on the deck of every major carrier in the U.S.

Google’s product launches on Sprint’s (nyse: S – news – people ) deck Thursday. Other carriers will likely welcome it aboard in the future; though proportionately few users give mobile e-mail a try, their attempts still count as high-margin data fees, and carriers want to cast as wide a net as possible.

But this diversity in branding and e-mail features in deck applications comes at a cost, says Martin Dunsby, senior vice president and general manager of global services at Openwave, maker of the most-used mobile Web browser in the U.S. The clutter and confusion caused by proprietary mobile e-mail software pushes people back to thinking it’s too much work to do anything on a handset but talk,??? says Dunsby.

While Dunsby acknowledges that any amount of downloading or browsing is good for his company–its financials are tied directly to the use of data services–he’d much rather see one standard messaging system in place, such as a platform that can accommodate any type of message (e-mail, text or instant message), from any provider. All the variety today, he says, is too complicated.

Until such a unified system exists, though, phone users are limited to what’s on their phones–and even if they don’t plan on using phone e-mail very often, says Henderek, they want to know it’s there. It’s a psychological thing–a reassurance about your e-mail provider,??? he says. But if you’re serious about e-mail you’ll just get a RIMM BlackBerry or Palm Treo.???

(Non US users can go to www.google.com/app and get it wherever in the world you are.)

Source- forbes  Wireless Mobile Telecom Gmail