Vendor
Genesis
In
1981, Eric Allman developed sendmail to route messages between disparate mail
systems. Two years later, in 1983, sendmail version 4.2 was shipping with 18
different vendor UNIX systems. The product was primarily "open-source" coding,
which allowed system administrators to add whatever custom configurations deemed
necessary. This "open-source" code allowed sendmail to gain a strong following,
which has continued to the present day. In 1991, Eric Allman unified the sendmail
development volunteers and released the enhanced version of sendmail via FTP
in 1992. Six years later, in March of 1998, Eric Allman and Greg Olson formally
launched Sendmail, Inc. The company is privately held. The company was successfully
launched with $18M (USD) is venture capital funding. By the end of the 1999
fiscal year, Sendmail, Inc. had acquired 1600 new commercial clients, resulting
in both strong product and services sales. In 1999 Sendmail, Inc derived 62%
of its income from product sales, and 38% from services. From a channel perspective,
68% of Sendmail, Inc.'s sales were direct, the remaining 32% was derived through
channel sales. Some of Sendmail, Inc.'s clients include AMD, Pfizer, Mail.com,
Lucent, Nortel, GTE, Charles Schwab and many others.
Sendmail,
Inc.'s business is based upon two key components, Mail Routing and Mail Hosting.
Sendmail is available for all versions of UNIX and Microsoft Windows NT platforms
and accounts for 75% of the Internet's Message Transfer Agents (MTA). In a corporate
environment, sendmail typically resides in two areas: 1) behind the firewall
routing Inbound and Outbound Internet mail between the primary mail servers,
and 2) at the firewall to route mail over the Internet. The most commonly used
mail servers interacting with sendmail in a corporate environment are Lotus
Notes, Novell GroupWise and Microsoft Exchange.
Vendor
Strategy and Trajectory
Sendmail
is continuing to target corporate environments through implementation of complimentary
message routing solutions to enhance the existing collaborative messaging environment.
Over 50% of Sendmail Inc.'s new sales are generated from Fortune 5000 companies,
with the remaining 40% emanating from ISPs and ASPs. Sendmail, Inc. will continue
to develop its channel sales through existing partners such as Merisel as well
as expanding its solution provider presence.
Sendmail is developing partnerships in the Unified Messaging arena to enable
the company to continue its momentum in the collaborative corporate and Internet
space, with some of its partners including Trend Micro, Brightmail, VSI and
Messaging Direct. The components Sendmail is targeting include Content Management,
Subscription Mailing Systems, Internet Document Management and Unified Messaging.
We expect additional partners to be announced as part of Sendmail Inc.'s new
product release and announcement scheduled for February 7th, along with increased
sendmail functionality. Sendmail Inc. will continue to provide open-source code
to the user community and will derive revenue from both commercially-enhanced
products and commercial support and professional services for the commercial
products. Support options can be obtained on an incremental or per issue basis,
ranging from incident based support to enhanced on-site support, which has been
particularly popular in the ISP space.
Vendor
Strengths
Sendmail's
strengths lie in its Message Routing and Message Hosting Services. Sendmail's
reliability and security have become well known to network administrators over
the last ten years. Sendmail's built in anti-spam features and enhanced security
make sendmail an ideal choice as a mail routing agent between a corporate firewall
and a collaborative messaging environment. The Sendmail for NT version offers
the POP3 mail hosting capabilities that were acquired from Checkpoint, allowing
both ISPs and corporations greater flexibility in mailbox implementations. The
cost of Sendmail is extremely appealing with an Microsoft NT POP3 implementation
of $4,995 (USD) for 5,000 mailboxes. The UNIX servers are priced competitively
and processor based, with the first processor costing $895 (USD) and each additional
costing approximately $395 (USD). Sendmail, Inc. has expanded its market by
recognizing the need for NT based solutions and implementing it. Sendmail has
also moved away from a strict command line interface (with the exception of
open-source code) by providing a quick and simplified shrink-wrapped installation
package.
Vendor
Challenges
The
largest challenge facing Sendmail is its perceived image of difficult implementation
and maintenance. The new graphical user interfaces allow mid level network administrators
to quickly install and configure the new out-of-the-box packages. Another challenge
is Sendmail Inc.'s entry into the Internet Application space. Sendmail, Inc.
is taking the appropriate steps and signing with strategic business partners,
but it will initially be a marketing struggle. Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange
are well entrenched in the UM space and currently provide strong Internet tools.
We believe Sendmail will face a significant challenge when attempting to expand
from Mail Routing and Hosting to Internet Collaboration.
Vendor
Predictions
Sendmail,
Inc. was only formed in 1988, but has garnered an impressive breadth and depth
of clients. Sendmail currently has 120 employees, and we expect it to double
its size by the fourth quarter of 2001(Probability 80%). Expect to see enhancements
to the Mail Hosting and Routing capabilities by the 3rd quarter of 2000 (Probability:
70%). Sendmail will experience a sales advantage come the beginning of February,
when it announces new product enhancements and strategic business partners (Probability
90%). Expect Sendmail to mature into a full blown Internet based collaborative
tool with enhanced security, anti-virus and anti-spam utilities by the 1st quarter
of 2001. (Probability 80%).
Vendor
Recommendations
Sendmail
is taking the right steps. It is building strong strategic business partnerships
with leading vendors in the Internet Application space, with more announcements
expected shortly. Sendmail has already improved the graphical user interface
and has made installation simpler while expanding its offering to include a
version tailored to Windows NT and to Linux. One recommendation would be to
increase educational and promotional opportunities through offering bi-annual
equivalencies of Lotus' Lotusphere and Microsoft's Exchange Conference.
User
Recommendations
Sendmail is a proven transfer agent and has been nicknamed "bulletproof". It
is stable, secure and reliable and has been production proven by over 75% of
the Internet's ISPs and ASPs. Corporations looking to improve security, implement
spam-reducing features and enhance routing speed without displacing their existing
system can turn to Sendmail. The product compliments existing environments well
and its POP3 mail hosting is an extremely financially viable solution for ISPs.
Sendmail should be on the short list for both corporate environments and Internet
environments for mail routing and hosting.