Messaging made easy: SBC takes aim at non-technical market

SBC Communications has teamed with Cidco Inc. to offer a new e-mail device for the less technically savvy user.

Cidco's MailStation will be marketed by SBC as eMessage. "It's really for those who have no experience whatsoever in sending and receiving e-mail or configuring computers," said Craig Roth, product manager for SBC's Internet service.

eMessage's service lets users send and receive simple text-based e-mail messages through a graphical user interface and supports up to five accounts, said Tim Dooley, Cidco's executive vice president for strategic regional business development. Five icons help users navigate through e-mail functions: an inbox, an outbox, a message creation box, an address book and a simple calculator.

The 2.2-pound device, which features a keyboard that is 85% of the size of a standard keyboard, is "somewhat portable," Dooley said. It can be powered by three AAA batteries, allowing users to read and compose e-mail off line, plugging into a phone line only to send or receive messages.

MailStation will retail for less than $180, and users will pay less than $10 per month for the required Internet service. SBC's version of the device also can double as a caller ID unit.

Roth said eMessage primarily will be targeted at customers who have been left behind by technological advances.

More specifically, the "mature" and baby boomer markets are ideal for the product, said Bill Sole, Cidco's executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing.

"A lot of parents out there don't have a PC, don't want PCs, don't need the complication or expense of PCs, but would like to be able to communicate with their families and children much more frequently," he said. Cidco is in discussions with other telcos both domestically and internationally for possible product distribution, Sole said.

SBC announced that it plans to market the portable e-mail unit to technically astute users.