Amidst the brouhaha on whether the government is paying for the 1Malaysia Email project or not, the private company spearheading the effort said that they will be saving the government millions in the long run.

Email provider Tricubes Bhd said that they are expected to save up to RM200 million in the next 10 years, based on sample research on four different government agencies.

This is by cutting out several processes such as document generation, sorting and enveloping, and distribution, through electronic billing.

NONE Reading out from well-prepared Powerpoint slides in a press conference in Kuala Lumpur this morning, chief executive Khairun Zainal Mokthar ( right ) said that the key differences between 1Malaysia Email, or ‘MyEmail’, is that they will also digitalise bills and notices for the government agencies before sending them out.

“As with the other email services, it’s just a maybe,” he said, adding that the other email services do not authenticate users using biometrics.

To sign up for the MyEmail, Malaysians would have to go input their thumbprint to register, either at the National Registration Department offices, or by using a USB biometric device, which Tricubes will also sell.

While he said that Tricubes is not concentrating on payment services, he admitted that it would be a natural progression.

But they also have no plans to merge with MyEG, a concessionaire for the Malaysian E-government MSC flagship application.

‘We don’t have a monopoly’

Tricubes also said that while they have received the ‘entry-point project’ status in the Economic Transformation Programme, Khairun said that it still did not mean that his company has received a monopoly over the project.

“But as a private company, it did give us a headstart. The selection process was done by the government but other parties can still suddenly come in and offer the same services,” he said.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had announced last Tuesday that MyEmail is one of the 12 entry-point projects under the Economic Transformation Programme, but it would completely be privately funded.

azlan However, some confusion arose when a representative from the Performance, Management and Delivery Unit told a radio interview recently that government agencies may be charged about RM0.50 for each email sent, which Tricubes confirmed recently.

But when asked how Tricubes managed to land the project, Khairun said that they went through normal channels like any other ETP companies.

“We put in a request for proposal (RFP) and a team (from Pemandu) was set up to go through the selection process. But only the government is privy to the process, all we did was just submit a proposal,” he said, adding that the RFP was for an ‘email service provider’.

But despite the earlier claims that Tricubes and Microsoft are already working together to “ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the users”, Khairun said, “The business relationship with Microsoft is still under discussion”.

He also said that there may be other spin-off projects in the pipeline, such as social networking, online bill payment and job boards.

“This will be permission-based. It gives you what you want if you want it... but we’re not going to develop everything from scratch. We may partner portals which are already well-established,” he said.

Khairun also said that electronic billing is the environmentally-friendly way, saving 4,250 tonnes of paper in the next 10 years.

“That's equivalent to 8.5 million pages, or 188 times the height of KLCC, saving 102,000 trees,” he added.