What is the big idea, you might wonder. Well, the price is the idea. A Mumbai-based company IRIS Computers aims to offer this value-added service within a few months at a cost of mere Re 1.

MyIris Online is targeted at the individuals and small investors. Besides voice retrieval through a text-to-speech software, it will also offer free website hosting for anybody wanting it.

If supported by the department of telecom and private operators, MyIris could become the biggest, and hottest, idea this side of the Mediterranean. And one of the most successful after Hotmail.

Developed by another enterprising Indian, Swaminathan and his team at the four-year-old IRIS (Investment Research and Information Services) Computers, the programme will offer a free e-mail with tremendous valueaddition. The company has already held preliminary discussions with a number of telecom providers including MTNL in Mumbai and Delhi. Swami is hopeful that it will be able to arrive at a revenue-sharing formula with the telecom companies.

IRIS' site offers a host of useful information and tools on various investment avenues, including equities, debt, mutual funds, insurance and real estate painstakingly developed for the last four years.

Portfolio trackers, fora for sharing views and exchanging ideas, frequently asked questions on various financial instruments, planners and expert views on a range of topics are among the services offered on this site. MyIris users will be provided with a free e-mail address.

Swaminathan expects to raise revenue from advertisers, but admits that in absence of revenue support, the whole idea could just fizzle out.

The total project cost is Rs 20 crore. IRIS will put in Rs 7 crore from internal accruals and plans to plough in the rest through borrowings from financialinstitutions and banks over the next two years.

It has hosted one server in Mumbai and plans to have 20 within next two to three years. Both the server and the bandwidth are being provided by Satyam Online.

The company has an existing service called IRIS Online. At the Confederation of India-sponsored India Engineering Trade Fair '99 (IETF) in the Capital on Friday, it will launch what has been ambitiously termed as Project Connect comprising the world's largest networked community within India.

Under Project Connect, all the business visitors to the fair will be given a small form by CII to fill for a free e-mail and website. Swami hopes at least 20,000 will sign up at the fair alone. CII member corporates too are likely to be roped in to join Project Connect in addition to schools, colleges and other institutions. CII and IRIS will lead a campaign to sign up as many members as possible all of whom will receive a free e-mail and website space. The target is a million by the millennium.

IRIS Onlinewill provide the most comprehensive Indian business information service available online for institutional clients. The service is a manna from the Net for the corporate sector. IRIS has tied up with several organisations like HDFC, Bloomberg News and National Stock Exchange.

Detailed information and analysis on companies, industries, the economy, policies and regulatory issues, as well as full text notifications and documents form part of its host of features. MyIris will offer a limited part of the same database to individual customers.

Particularly those with a need for financial information can heave a sigh of relief as they will also be able to access wide-ranging information related to financial markets, stock movements, bullion, corporate database, personal finance, savings and investment.

Quoting a study done by IL&FS among the Net users, Swami points out that e-mail, transfer of e-files and electronic data transfer form the bulk of use of the internet in India. ``If communication forms such animportant use of the Net, why not tap it to the hilt than be restricted by the hardware availability,'' he said.

Though Swami expects almost 80 to 90 per cent of his users to come from the metros, category I and II towns is where he wants to focus at in the longer term. Low PC penetration would not affect IRIS venture, he feels.

The company will work aggressively to build web awareness so that traffic to its site could be enhanced. Quality of bandwidth and hardware costs will however may be crucial to the venture's future in the next two years.

Though Swami says, ``we are not aspiring become a rival to Hotmail,'' if the idea clicks with a little help from the telecom companies and good marketing, it could definitely challenge the undisputed leader in free e-mail business.