This company is betting on convergence, developing sophisticated applications while remaining focused on its core business.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [August 8, 2005]

Founded in 1999, Blacksburg, Va.-based Webmail.us is now a national business. The company focuses on an e-mail service for small businesses and for geographically dispersed businesses. Auto dealerships are a key vertical.

Webmail.us 866-392-3336 contact form

"In 1999, we were building a portal, e-mail service, and more, and giving it away, hoping to monetize the traffic. It was a typical 1999 business model, and shortly after we founded the business, the market crashed," recalls CEO and founder Patrick Matthews.

The company focused on its core competence, ditching the portal and working to improve the e-mail product.

"We're adding customers each month." As a result, the company will not be doing webhosting, e-commerce, or blogging, which may make it an attractive partner for ISP-Planet readers who want a webmail partner who does not compete with them.

The company's webmail product is a mail server based on postfix. The company employs other open source as well, using ClamAV as one of two anti-virus programs and a customized version of SpamAssassin for anti-spam.

A future in the inbox
Matthews says his company's focus is now about changing and expanding e-mail. "We're innovating the inbox," he says. "We believe that many technologies will converge into e-mail."

For example, later this month, the company will release an RSS feature that is currently in beta. Matthews says that much business software will soon be RSS-enabled. "Microsoft announced that the new OS will incorporate RSS."

In its own office, Webmail.us uses software called Base Camp developed by Chicago-based 37 Signals. Colleagues can subscribe to a project's RSS feed.

"It's also beautiful that you can unsubscribe from an RSS feed," says Matthews. "That's a real advantage over e-mail!"

RSS is a feature
For the RSS feature, Matthews says the company is anticipating a need rather than responding to a request. "We're taking a little bit of a risk. We have talked to customers and they see value in this tool. We also want to differentiate our offering."

ISPs know the fear of commoditization only too well. Matthews' vision of an ever more complex inbox also allows him to map out a future where people will still want Webmail.us.

The RSS feature will enable companies to subscribe their employees to feeds, to permit or forbid any or all RSS feeds, and a variety of other features.

Matthews adds that many CEOs and companies are starting to have their own blogs. Jupitermedia's CEO Alan Meckler has a blog, as do many analysts at Jupiter Research. Matthews' blog is called "Small Town, Big Ideas" and yes, that's his actual license plate.

All of these blogs have RSS feeds. With RSS delivered to the inbox, internet users erode the distinction between browsing and e-mail.

Reseller program
The company offers a reseller program for an undisclosed fee. Webmail.us will private label the product for an ISP

A bright future
Webmail.us has several projects. It is building a more business friendly contact list feature that will allow companies to preload the company directory, at the server level, into the contact list of any new employee. The directory should be updated regularly.

The Webmail.us calendar, currently in development, also offers RSS feeds.

But the company's main project, for which it raised $500,000 in financing, is to rewrite the app in AJAX (which stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). He expects the project to make the application faster and also better able to handle the e-mail convergence he believes in. In fact, you could say he's betting on convergence.

— End

Related articles:
	[Dec. 14, 2005]	AJAX Integration Progresses at Webmail.us
	[June 6, 2005]	Rich Webmail for Everyone
	[April 25, 2005]	AOL Mail on the Web
	[Sept. 12, 2000]	Another Service

Online resource:
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	Webmail Quick Reference Chart