BANGALORE, INDIA: In this technology-driven era, we depend heavily on emails and cell phones to stay connected. For many, who are in regular touch with friends, colleagues and business contacts through emails, it may not be possible to be on the computer at all times. And, not all of them can afford to have smart phones with GPRS services or a Blackberry.

Now, you can get your emails even when you are away from the computer. Gurgaon-based Khushii IT Solutions has recently launched a service called GooseBerry (http://www.gooseberry.in/), an email notification system, that helps you receive your emails on the SMS Inbox of your cell phone in real time (Compression algorithm applied optimize content delivery over SMS ). The service works across both GSM and CDMA networks.

“GooseBerry has made it possible to be connected with your emails 24X7, without Internet or GPRS connection. You can receive and reply to your emails using the SMS and can limit the number of SMS alerts you receive by using Allowed list and Blocked list,” says Sachin Gupta, principal consultant at Khushii IT Solutions. GooseBerry will allow only those emails that contain the specified keywords with in the email ID, subject tag or body tag of an email specified by the user in the Allowed list.

Giving more details on how GooseBerry works, Gupta says, “Presently, we are able to compress the mail size by 30 percent to ensure that you get only a snapshot of the email on your phone in one SMS. Each SMS received will have up to 160 characters in length.  However, to receive the full email, you can send SMS requests to us by typing 'next' and receive the complete mail in parts. While there is no upper limit on the number of SMS sent to the receiver from our end, the reply from the user's side is limited to only one SMS.”

“In order to stay in touch with their emails, people spend heavily on costly devices and data plans for GPRS connectivity. When we surveyed quite a number of BlackBerry and GPRS users, a majority of them were not satisfied with the respective services as it was expensive and also found difficulty in getting the mails due to slow bandwidth. This is when we thought of offering a similar solution on SMS,” explains Gupta.

GPRS is a PULL-based solution, which means you will always need to check yourself if there is a new email, while GooseBerry will push the email to you. GooseBerry will work anywhere your phone works in India while GPRS-based phones will work only where you have GPRS network available, he adds.

“GooseBerry service is offered through a compression technique, where we remove spaces in the mail, use abbreviations and SMS lingos. We also use scientific methods of finding which are the important parts of an email to be sent,” he added.

All that one needs to do to get this service is register with Gooseberry by giving the phone number and email credentials. “Other than the subscription fee, GooseBerry does not charge for sending SMS alerts to your phone. However, you will be charged your service provider for sending the reply to your email on your phone ,” says Gupta.

With GooseBerry, one can achieve the same service with as low as Rs. 95 per month. You can also go in for multiple packs depending on the usage and email traffic expected. Gooseberry supports 37 email servers as of Jan 2009, including corporate emails, gmail, Yahoo, ibibo etc. Every day support for more email servers is being added as users from various companies are requesting for the same.

Why is the service named GooseBerry? “We wanted a name that is very Indian, and also be identified with the existing technology. Hence, we decided on GooseBerry,” says Gupta.

Advantages of GooseBerry

• The service runs on any mobile on the planet without needing to install anything
• You don't need to have a special hardware ie., Blackberry or mobile with GPRS/3G capability
• The cost of this service is a fraction of the rental cost of Blackberry or data plan (GPRS) which you would have
• You can create filters so that you don't get unwanted emails on your device
• There are no extra charges on roaming as well (saves quite a bit of money)

With every one going into cost saving mode, this might be the solution companies are looking for.