Low-Cost E-Mail Appliance Promises Robust Features For Small Biz

The system builder and distributor is showing off the device at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose this week. The Winmail e-mail server is aimed at small business and SOHO customers -- those that want an e-mail server "but don't need the complexity of [Microsoft's] Exchange," said James Huang, product marketing specialist at AMAX, Fremont, Calif.

A "plug and play device," it is easy to set up but still offers advanced e-mail capabilities, said Haung. The server supports popular mail clients such as Outlook, Netscape and Eudora and also offers Web-mail for remote access, said Huang. It also supports antivirus engines and includes back-up and archiving features, he said.

The device uses AMAX's Winmail software, which was developed in-house about two years ago for Windows systems. AMAX felt the time was right for a low-cost appliance that bundled the software with easy to set-up hardware. AMAX will offer the system for private labeling and also will sell a branded version to VARs and direct to end-users in the San Francisco Bay area. Haung sees the opportunity to diversify and offer services for small businesses in the San Francisco area.

The device is housed in a slim desktop/tower convertible case and uses an Intel Pentium 4 processor. It supports up to 4Gbyte of DDR2 memory and includes onboard Gigabit Ethernet LAN, front I/0, two USB ports, and a firewire port. A four-port SATA controller comes Intel Matrix Storage Technology for RAID, 0, 1, 5, 10 and Matrix RAID.

The device carries a price of $998 for the SOHO version and $1,799 for a more robust enterprise edition, including 50 user licenses.

Hank Skawinksi, owner of Datawise, a Mountain View, Calif., system builder and VAR, said the concept sounds good, though he is waiting to formally evaluate the product.

"It sounds great," he said. "It's an all-encompassing box, literally one size fits all."

Skawinksi said he used to prefer to build his own e-mail servers, but the complexity of Microsoft software and security issues has made preconfigured appliances more attractive.

"When things were a lot slower and we didn't have all those security issues to deal with, I would just build a computer and install Linux and Sendmail."

Skawinksi said his biggest concern about the device is its embedded Windows operating system, which he feels may leave the system vulnerable to attacks, and the quality of the user interface. These are features he is planning to test first-hand when the new systems arrive for evaluation.

To minimize security risks, Huang said AMAX removed Windows components and services that are not used by the email server and set up the appliance so it automatically downloads and installs patches.