Sabeer Bhatia creator of the popular email service HOTMAIL is back at doing what he does best - being an
entrepreneur. His latest offering plans to capture fast-growing mobile users
across the globe. On Tuesday 23rd November 2011 he
launched JaxtrSMS, a mobile application that lets users send unlimited free
text messages to any other phone anywhere in the world.
JaxtrSMS, co-founded by Bhatia and Yogesh Patel, is
an application that allows users to send text messages for free anywhere in the
world. It took Bhatia and a team of 50 people over a year to come out with the
latest offering. While Bhatia has announced three more ventures - Arzoo,
Instacoll and SabseBol - after Hotmail, JaxtrSMS would see him back at the helm
as a chief executive officer.
JaxtrSMS is already
available as a free download for all major mobile operating systems - iOS,
Android, Blackberry and J2ME. In fact, users in 197 countries have already
downloaded the app within a few weeks since the soft launch, said Bhatia, who
is CEO & co-founded Jaxtr with Yogesh Patel in US.
JaxtrSMS
is unique in that a mobile user can send a text SMS to any mobile phone in the
world without requiring the receiver to have the JaxtrSMS application installed
on her phone. This "open" facet of JaxtrSMS distinguishes it from
other free mobile messaging applications such as Whatsapp where messages can
only be sent within a closed network to people who also have the same app
installed. JaxtrSMS retains the number of the user and no new number is
required while signing up for the JaxtrSMS service.
"15
years ago, we gave you Hotmail.com, the world's first webmail service that
freed up e-mail from the confines of the desktop and aided the creation of a
global communications network which was completely open and free for users.
Today, we present JaxtrSMS which does to SMS what Hotmail did for e-mail. Now,
mobile users can leverage our free and open application to send messages to
their contacts anywhere across the world without having to pay anything,"
said Bhatia.
"JaxtrSMS
was completely developed in India. I am proud to showcase this as an example of
Indian innovation and ingenuity," said Yogesh Patel, president &
co-founder
Here is how it works –
§ You
download the app.
§ It
asks you to sign up with your name and phone number
§ In
Android, your phone number is verified by sending a self SMS ]
§ In
iPhone they send you a verification link by SMS to your phone
§ Once
the phone is verified, the inbox looks very much like the native inbox in these
OS
§ You
can select a recipient from your address book and send a message
§ At
the server they determine whether the recipient is on Jaxtr or not
§ If
the recipient is not on Jaxtr, then an SMS is sent (from a US number) with the
message text along with a snippet to download jaxtr on the phone
§ If
the recipient is on Jaxtr then of course the message is sent directly to the
user’s inbox.
In
terms of functionality, the messaging is very similar to that of a Whatsapp –
with your phone number becoming your only identity and being used for
messaging. We guess it also uses a jabber based implementation at the back end
for the communication to ensure real time delivery and feedback.
A
couple of points to note though -
a)
All SMS for non Jaxtr users are sent from a US number. It remains to be seen
how scalable this is because of the SMS costs potentially growing fast if
someone wants to spam
b) It
is available on a variety of platforms – that’s super cool and is a clear
differentiator from others in the space
c) In
the Android version, they could have the capability to intercept SMS and show
in their inbox – something that the SMS Gupshup messenger is sure to have and
phone.cc toys with.
d) We
think its a great idea to customize UI for each platform rather than have a one
size fits all solution
Bottomline
– this by itself is a good product, but enters a market already populated by
heavyweights like Whatsapp. It doesn’t identify a niche which differentiates it
from the others – therefore needs a lot of marketing and Bhatia’s money to get
noticed vis a vis the others.
Do
try JaxtrSMS and share your opinion.
REGARDZ :
SUNNY DHANOE
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