New Gordano E-Mail Gives Users Power Over Spam

Gordano

A new confirmation process in GLWEBMail XT enables users to prevent

delivery of any message from a person not in the address book, including those without an address in the "From:" field. That message is routed to a quarantine file, and the system automatically sends a message back to the sender asking him or her to confirm his or her existence.

If the sender is a real person and not a spam mailing service, he or she will hit reply. Once that reply is received, the mail system matches a token in the original message and routes it back to the inbox, the company said.

The new mail also adds personal calendars and alarms to the mix.

Gordano, which is based in Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K., is starting to see traction among small and midsize companies that don't want to pay full freight for feature- and resource-intensive mail systems such as Lotus Notes/Domino and Microsoft Exchange, some solution providers said.

"With Notes, one of two things happen--either people end up using it like Exchange for just mail and calendaring or they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for programmers who make it do more. So I don't see a lot of Notes in medium accounts. And the price of Exchange is huge compared to [Gordano's NTMail," said Steve Larson, vice president of systems integration and Internet security at Enterprise Network Systems, an Egan, Minn.-based Gordano reseller.

NTMail is Gordano's existing Windows-based e-mail; GLMail is the Linux/Unix version. The new iteration adds user spam control to both offerings.

Some industry observers said companies such as Gordano, Rockliffe and Ipswitch may see more opportunities to grab market share as Microsoft and IBM's Lotus Software group make fundamental changes to the infrastructure of their own e-mail offerings. Both Microsoft and Lotus plan to swap out existing data store technology for new relational models and both are moving to a Web services model.

Those changes, coupled with the tough economy, could spur companies and solution providers to look at lower-cost alternatives.

"People look at other choices when migrations are painful and expensive. Some percentage will do that," said Amy Wohl, president of Wohl Associates, a Narberth, Pa.-based consultancy. "This is the opportunity for new guys and the downside for old guys, which is why legacy players like Microsoft always pretend every new product is a continuation of the old product--they pretend there will be no disruption."

Research firm Ferris Networks estimates that upgrading from Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 to the current Exchange Server 2000 can cost as much as $500 per user, including hidden costs.

A 50-user license for GLWebMailXT Office costs $1,100 for Unix. For 50 Windows users, the price is $744.