TXT, IM coming to low-cost mobiles

Full-on messaging is coming to low-cost mobile phones, thanks to a startup out of the U.S.

Berggi Inc., which has been founded by a consortium of European entrepreneurs, will bring email and instant messaging from the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to phones other than the high-end Blackberries, Palms, and smartphones of the world. Those phones, of course, also allow Web access, something that the Berggi initiative won’t do. Users can’t attach documents, either, but they can send text messages.

The service will debut in the U.S. on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, and will cost US$10 a month. Folks in Spain can sign up the next day, and the service will spread to Italy, Mexico, Turkey, and the United Kingdom early in 2007.