LONDON: Google has launched a service in Europe enabling mobile phone users to access Google News and Gmail via their mobile phones. The service is already available in the U.S.
Mobile phone users in the U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Russia can access Google News and Gmail using a mobile browser. While only news pages from sources whose content is specifically designed for viewing on mobile phones will be available in the service, Gmail can be accessed as one normally accesses it on a PC.
This is Google's further push into the mobile internet, which the company sees as a future growth area. It is excited over the prospects as mobile phone sales are now outstripping sales of computers. Emphasizing that the company is serious about its foray into mobile internet, the company's head of mobile products Deep Nishar said in many emerging markets only mobiles phones offer the medium for people to access the world's information.
The service is not dependent on the mobile phone service provider and Nishar said the specified Google products can be accessed regardless of the service provider, though Google has partnerships several operators including T-Mobile and Vodafone and handset makers like Motorola and SonyEricsson.
The service is offered free, but the mobile phone service company will charge the customers for the data calls they made to access Google servers.
Google said as regards Gmail, it automatically optimizes the interface for each phone. Users can also view attached photos and documents from their phone, and reply-by-call to people whose phone number is stored in their Gmail account.
In addition to these two services, the company is also offering the Google Personalized Home, which is a new service that enables users to access their personalized Google homepage.
In Russia, the services will be available with Russian-language menu.
