Email developer goes commercial
The creator of popular mail transfer software forms a company to design commercial enhancements and to support the program.
Nearly 20 years ago, the computer programmer developed a simple program for exchanging email between a government network known as the ARPAnet and the computer system at the University of California at Berkeley. Today, Allman's Sendmail software--which is free for any network administrator to copy, use, and modify--routes an estimated 75 percent of email on the Internet.
"We realized that the Internet is very much at a critical turning point in its evolution," said Greg Olson, a former executive at Integrated Systems who will be chief executive of Sendmail. He added that as more commercial companies take to the Net, free software--also known as freeware or open source software--faces new challenges.
"Free software on the Net is not necessarily the most cost-effective solution for businesses," he explained. "If it does not step up to the challenge of meeting commercial needs, it will be left behind."
Sendmail joins a host of other companies that are bridging the gap between freeware and commercial enterprise. In January, Netscape Communications said it would freely distribute the source code for its Communicator software suite. Caldera and Red Hat both have created moneymaking businesses distributing and supporting the open source operating system known as Linux.
The first commercial product--to be called Sendmail 8.9 Pro--is due out in the third quarter of 1998, and will provide enhancements that are not available in the open source version. For instance, the commercial version will be available in a pretested, precompiled binary format, eliminating what many network administrators say is the arduous task of downloading the software off the Net and then customizing it to run on their particular systems.
Olson said Sendmail would peddle its wares primarily to Internet service providers during its first year of operation and then move on to corporate customers during its second year.
Phil Schacter, a senior analyst with the Burton Group, said the plan is likely to work. "There's a market out there for a supported and enriched version of the mail transfer agent," he said. "Both of those marketplaces, I believe, are willing to pay to have a vendor support the product and enhance it."
He added that Sendmail's biggest challenge will be pleasing corporate customers, who will want more sophisticated features built into the software: "They've got a lot of work to do before they have a complete Internet messaging product suitable for a corporate messaging infrastructure."
But Sendmail has a number of advantages, namely its dominant market share. Its closest competitors, Software.Com, Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes--hold just 3 percent of the market. It also has received investments from Sun Microsystems executives Bill Joy and Andy Bechtolscheim.