What is the entrepreneur Sabeer Bhatia's new Venture-NavinMail

Courtesy : EconomicTimes, 16 August 2002

Bangalore: BPL Mobile, a leading mobile service provider, and Navinmail set up by
Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail, have joined hands to introduce two new products in India using the voice-messaging platform.

The products, miVoice and MPAS (mobile answer phone service), on mots (BPL Mobile prepaid card service) will be introduced soon. The new products incorporate
technologies of Telivoice and Telipower, belonging to Navinmail, a creation of Bhatia.

Navinmail Service (India) Pvt Ltd is a 100-per cent subsidiary of Navin Communications based in California and founded by a team of Indian-American entrepreneurs.

miVoice allows BPL mobile subscribers to send and receive voice messages to the ISD destinations such as the US and Canada and to all subscribers in networks in major
metros of India at a very low rate of Rs 3.95 and Rs 1.95, respectively. MAPS allows

BPL subscribers to be reachable even when their handsets are switched off, busy or
when no answer comes from the handset.

BPL Mobile president and CEO F B Cardoso says: “Customer feedback has shown that SMS service has a language barrier and is impersonal. With miVoice, we have removed these barriers by allowing the subscribers to send a message in their own voice at almost the cost of the SMS.”

Navinmail co-chairman Bhatia says: “Having a dynamic voicemail facility on the
cellular network is as powerful as having an e-mail facility on the Internet.”