SA companies launch rival GMail.co.za

[Anakha56]

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Telecoms/6870.html

SA companies launch rival GMail.co.za

Local free email service will offer 10GB storage to users.

South African company Webmail has teamed up with partner Gardale Solutions to launch GMail.co.za. Webmail already has over 800 000 registered webmail accounts.

GMail.co.za will offer users 10GB of storage space, free VoIP calls between users, an online chat service, as well as filesharing and fax-to-email services.

Gardale Solutions has owned the GMail.co.za domain name since 2003, well before Google decided to launch its GMail service.

The local Gmail service will be offered as a free service and Gardale will support its use through advertising. Webmail's marketing and business development director, Dennis Armstrong says that the companies "intend keeping the revenue derived from advertising on this product to continue with development and with the aim of going mobile by mid-year. This will allow more users the opportunity to access this service via their mobile phones."

To bad they cant make it look as nice as gmail.com

[DAE_JA_VOO]

Sounds like a great service, but they really need to use a different domain, and give the service a different name. Nobody cares that these guys have owned the gmail.co.za domain since before Google launched Gmail; the point is that Google launched their service first.

But hey, 10GB of local storage, sounds fantastic.

[doo_much]

To bad they cant make it look as nice as gmail.com

+1

[Ron2K]

Erm... why would I want to switch over? My experiences of Webmail are far from pleasant.

EDIT: And I notice the good folks over on myBB are picking them apart.

[DeathStrike]

Erm... why would I want to switch over? My experiences of Webmail are far from pleasant.

fully agree. i still have webmail. and the ads a completely off putting. hate the layout. and the space sux. are the existing webmail users ganna get their accounts converted to 10GB also?

[KillerByte]

i went to GMail because of all the ads on webmail.

[Synthesis]

I use gmail as one my main accounts but can't last remember when I logged onto webmail. I use it in Outlook as a standard account because it's much faster and more reliable than my standard emails. It's the only one I trust with sending and receiving immediately without delays.
I'll sign up with the gmail.co.za and if they support POP then cool, why not?

[Kasyx]

Oh wonderful!

Thanks to these idiots, The Real Gmail won't readily be able to set up a local mirror.

I'm sorry, but "gmail.co.za" is just retarded, in much the same way fake Nikes are retarded.

[Mow]

Google can buy them out if they want . They are greedy little pigs and all greedy little pigs have a price.

[lancelot]

Google can buy them out if they want . They are greedy little pigs and all greedy little pigs have a price.

I think that that is the whole scenario behind this, looking for a fast buck from Google.

[SykomantiS]

If that is the case, they were really, really good at anticipating the domain name of Google email service, since they were registered before gmail.com existed

[SBSP]

Erm... why would I want to switch over? My experiences of Webmail are far from pleasant.

fully agree. i still have webmail. and the ads a completely off putting. hate the layout. and the space sux. are the existing webmail users ganna get their accounts converted to 10GB also?

Maybe but your email address will change from Whatever@Webmail.co.za to Whatever@Gmail.co.za
Unless they are kind enough to set up an alias.

Its fake, and stupid get your self a real gmail account.

People should create them seleves a few 100 accounts and and waste their space.

[Mow]

lancelot,

Fortunately , i think the guys in charge at google hq have a special way to deal with companies like these.

Isnt this a violation of trademark ?

[SykomantiS]

Mow, Don't think so, like the article says, they owned the domain name before google launched gmail, so I would think when it comes to .za google have no foot to stand on, 'cept if they throw money at the problem. Legally I think (and I'm no expert and this is only my opinion) that google can't really do anything.

[DarkStar]

Actually, the fact that they only decided to host an e-mail server now, after google has already done it, using that name, holds a case in my opinion.

They won't last long.

[SykomantiS]

Time will tell.

[jee]

One has to look at it from another money point... the SA bunch had the name before Google.....

[Mow]

yes jee , but now they want to feed of the success of google .

[jee]

yea, they want to - but what if they want to claim that the name belongs to them and google has to pay them for it?

Will make an interesting trademark case..... you know the USAsians like to sue... mayhap Souf Efricans learned something from them.