Dec 14, 2000 12:00 PM,

E-mail via voice

Donny Jackson

(Telephony) It’s a dilemma that many face on a daily basis: How do you respond to e-mail when getting online is either impossible or impractical?

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TrekMail, a San Francisco-based company founded in February, hopes its voice-to-e-mail solution becomes a standard answer to this question. The company recently announced the release of the first version of its service, which it hopes will be resold by carriers.

Subscribers to TrekMail’s service are able to send e-mails via a phone message to any person or group on their preset mailing list. The message is sent as an MP3 attachment to the e-mail. This is especially handy for wireless Internet users who want to avoid the often-painstaking process of trying to type a message on the keypad of a mobile phone.

“What our service does is solve a basic limitation of handheld devices caused by the lack of a full-sized keyboard,” said Brian McConnell, a co-founder and chief technology officer for TrekMail.

While many unified messaging systems offer a form of this functionality in their suites, many of them require users to abandoned time-honored e-mail applications or alter other user habits. The fact that TrekMail works with any system should enhance the company’s prospects, according to TrekMail President Tim Miller.

“We’re not trying to get people to change the way they do business,” Miller said. “We’re just trying to make it easier for them to do business the way they normally do it.”

Founded in February, TrekMail is a self-funded company that wants to avoid public equity markets, Miller said.

“We’re more interested in building a product, not in building a stock,” he said.

The company is looking for funding but “we’re not in a deadline mode,” Miller said. Ideally, the company would like TrekMail to be offered by carriers as a premium service, he said, noting that TrekMail is discussing such a relationship with a large paging company.

“We’re looking for a carrier partner that has a billing system in place,” Miller said. “We want to be a premium-rate service, like *69 or 411.”