BeyondMail adds email rules, filters
Banyan's Internet subsidiary Coordinate.com will release an Internet-enabled upgrade to its BeyondMail messaging product.
BeyondMail Professional 3.0 includes "rules and filters" to allow users to sort email messages into folders on their desktop. When away from the office, the feature lets users pick which messages to download. The feature can also be used to set up workflow routing, according to Arthur Souza, the BeyondMail product line manager.
The software package comes with a few preconfigured rules and filter agents. IS developers can build additional agents by using the rule's scripting language included with the package, he said.
Version 3.0 also adds ActiveX support so that users can send multimedia mail without resorting to attachments.
The client-side software runs on any POP3 mail server and also includes native support for SMTP and MIME. Later this year, the company said it will add support for LDAP, IMAP, and S/MIME protocols.
Analysts said the package may foreshadow the struggling company's move deeper into the services marketplace.
Giga Information analyst Shilpa Agarwal especially liked sophisticated features like support for Banyan's StreetTalk directory service and the company's Switchboard Internet directory service. The Switchboard support allows BeyondMail users do an online search for an Internet address without leaving the mail application.
"Five years from now, Banyan will probably focus more services like on messaging and directory services," and less on the company's Vines network operating system, Agarwal said.
Coordinate.com is courting everyone for small business owners to Internet service providers with the messaging engine, which costs $69 per client. The company offers a $39 trade-in offer for the 2 million current users of BeyondMail, which has been around in client-server form since 1993.