The MSN® network of Internet services, the world’s most popular destination on the Web, and Mobileway Inc., a leader in managing and monetizing mobile transactions across the globe, today announced a major pan-Asian strategic mobile services alliance. As a result, MSN and Mobileway together will deliver the capability for mobile carriers in Asia to offer MSN Hotmail® Web-based e-mail service via two-way short message service (SMS) beginning this summer. The agreement, which follows successful carrier trials of the MSN Hotmail SMS service in both Chinese and English in the region, will also extend to offer MSN Messenger Service via SMS to consumers in the fall.

With this service, MSN Hotmail users on the go will have the option to receive e-mail sent by SMS to their MSN Hotmail accounts on their mobile phones. They will be able to reply to those e-mail messages directly to the sender’s inbox via SMS and perform other common tasks directly from their phone. MSN Hotmail is the world’s most popular free Web-based e-mail service* and has more than 110 million users worldwide, including 15 million in Asia.