Cyber cafes might miss him now. Sixty-seven year old R. Rajagopalan was a regular at one of these centres in Chennai to see if his US settled daughter had sent him a mail. Or he used to ask his brother-in-law to check his mail on his behalf at the cost of privacy. The reason? Prohibitive costs of personal computer for simple user like him.

Today he has iStation, a cost effect gadget compared to the computer, designed exclusively as a mailbox. No longer does Mr. Rajagopalan, and the likes of him, have to
trudge to the cyber cafes.

At less than Rs. 8,000, iStation will allow him to send and receive his letters in peace, even in his native tongue. Currently Kannada, Hindi and Tamil language service are available.

"We were working on this project for three years", says Mr. John Aravamuthan, chief executive officer, of the Bangalore-based iNabling Technologies, the makers of this equipment. The idea was to bring to low-income people a gadget that will keep them in tune with the times.

Computer penetration among villages and far-flung areas was unthinkable not only due to its high cost bout also owing to the technology phobia. But iStation is simple to use because of its only one function of sending and receiving mails.

Headed by BV. Jagadeesh, the co-founder of Exodus Communications and president, Netscaler, iNabling Technologies devised the product to fit in with a basic telephone application unlike the palmtops, cell phones etc in the developed countries working on wireless application.

The iStation being portable weighs 770 grams can be carried around by sales persons who can hook it on to public call offices from time to time. In the event that other programmes need to be run on this gadget, the user can enhance its 256-KB memory power by using cartridges sold by the company. As the company delivers only text based mails and not graphics its basic memory capacity is sufficient for normal users. In addition, iNabling Technologies also offer individual e-mail ids for 5 persons.

Once plugged into the telephone equipment, the line is activated only when the mail is received or sent. A built in modem and 9-volt battery facilitates the process. The keyboard is comfortable to use though the imported display screen could have been larger to be easy on the eyes. iNabling Technologies is also an internet service provider (ISP)   taking care of the connectivity to the net.

The gadget comes in two variants - Premier priced at Rs. 7,990 and Classic priced at Rs. 6,990. The company also levies a service charge of Rs. 100 per month.

The premium model is useful for those who want to take printout of their mails and the cheaper version is for those who are satisfied with just mailing facility.

According to Mr. Aravamuthan, the market research undertaken by the company has proved very encouraging. In three cities - Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad - around one lakh units could be sold in a matter of 6 months.

According to him the company hopes to sell around 50,000 units before March and post a turnover of Rs. 40 crore.

"Apart from individuals we will be targeting corporates and even government departments," says Mr. Aravamuthan. Recently the Karnataka government has placed an order for 60 units. Another revenue stream for the company is offering special information like news, weather reports etc to its subscribers.

Queried about competition from other access devices like palm tops, cell phones etc Mr. Narasimha Prabhu, chief technology officer says, "Our space is different. What is now available is palm tops, cell phones and Simputer is yet to be commercialised. Ours
is a simple and cost effective product and there is demand for the same."

The company - which has been funded by ICICI Ventures ($1 million), Infinity Ventures ($1 million) and other venture capitalists ($0.5 million) - hopes to break even during the first quarter of next fiscal selling 7,000 units p.m. Currently the equipment manufacturer has a capacity of 3,000 units p.m. and production could be ramped up to 10,000 p.m.

On the back end infrastructure side, iNabling Technologies has a mail server in Mumbai to receive and authenticate mails and has set up servers in each telecom districts in Karnataka and plans are there to set up in Tamil Nadu. After Karnataka, the company recently launched its services in Chennai and plans to have a national foot print in six months time.