Japan's KDDI to Offer Google-Based PC, Phone E-Mail

Japan's number two cell phone carrier will launch an e-mail service based on Google's Gmail in September, it said Monday.

KDDI Corp., which uses the "au" brand name for its cellular service, will offer the rebranded version of Gmail under the "au one mail" name. Like Gmail, the service will be accessible from both personal computers and cell phone screens.

A sample version of the interface shown Monday revealed that the new service will look almost identical to Gmail but with the carrier's logo at the top. It will be offered at no charge to users.

The Au-brand service had 28.1 million [m] subscriptions at the end of June giving it a 29 percent share of the Japanese cellular market. Of those users 24.1 million [m] also subscribed to the EZWeb service making them possible users of "ez one mail."

The new service will launch just over a year after Google and KDDI began working together. In July 2006 the carrier added a Google search box to its EZWeb mobile Internet service. That service mixes results from the EZWeb service and conventional Internet, with the latter reformatted for cell phones and displayed through a PC site viewer.