Okay... screw the 1Malaysia email...

There has been quite a noise around twitterjaya about the MyEmail aka the 1Malaysia email project headed by local company Tricubes and most of it, lets be honest has not been great. At a press conference held this morning, Tricubes Chief Executive Khairun Zainal Mokhtar was on hand to set the record straight by addressing all the issues that Malaysians had with the project.

With a concept like MyEmail, which is essentially a way for the Government to easily send emails to you as well as get certain bills and statements to one inbox, security is of the utmost concern. The first level of security is at the point of registration: When you register for the MyEmail service, your Full Name and IC number are taken but you will not be able to complete your registration until you authenticate yourself at either JPN or have Tricubes send you a USB fingerprint reader to do at home (with a slight extra cost). As I understand, the USB fingerprint reader is not tied to one account and can be shared with as many people as you please.

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While the MyEmail service is voluntary and free to have, there has been a gross misunderstanding with regards to whether Tricubes would be charging per email. As it stands, emails sent and received on the MyEmail service will not incur any costs to you as a consumer. The biggest misconception however is with the delivery of digital bills. While the cost of "not more than 50sen" is there for this service, it is not incurred by you, the consumer, rather Tricubes will charge the agent involved that fee. It will be a little silly if you had to pay for something that costs nothing if sent to you via the post, more so for something that is asking you for money like a bill. In the post office analogy that Khairun regularly went back to, the bill sender would have to pay the post office to send stuff to you, but in this case, instead of paying them, they will be paying Tricubes. The only cost that you will potentially bear is an optional one; It will cost a small fee to have your emails encrypted for a more secure experience. Khairun could not comment on the exact amount at present.

Finally the MyEmail service won't just be an email account, but rather Tricubes hopes to implement a portal which contains many value-added services such as content aggregation, market place, online bill payment and even social networking. Khairun also mentioned that a mobile app was in the works which would bring your MyEmail experience into the mobile setting.

Khairun also went on to say that despite the government's ambitious target of getting ever Malaysian over the age of 18 on board, that value was more of a yardstick and they were aiming for a more modest 5.4million subscriptions when they launch the service in July. Khairun also assured us that the MyEmail project was and will be all privately funded and there were no funds obtained from the government.

I for one will be seeing what the fuss is about when it launches in July, who knows, it may be a useful service rather than just the lifeline for Tricubes as many people see it to be. While I'm still a little skeptical, all I know is that seeing is believing. Bring it on Tricubes.

http://www.lowyat.net/v2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4314&Itemid=1

50SEN FOR SENDING ONE EMAIL?